Ripples in the Water
by Ness Frost
Summary: Ozai won the final battle, and Aang did not survive. Having lost someone they both care about deeply and separated from the rest of their friends, Zuko and Katara are forced to flee for their lives, and have no one to rely on but each other to survive... and to find and train the next Avatar. Not a shipping fic. Rating is for violence; full warnings inside.
1. Fallen

**Warnings:** This story is rated M for contents that some may find disturbing, upsetting, or triggering, including:

-Graphic violence

-Detailed description of injury

-_Multiple_ major character deaths

-Torture (including torture with drugs)

-Warfare

-Imperialism (along with the accompanying racism and brainwashing)

-Slavery

-Child abuse (physical, emotional and neglect)

If material of this nature will upset you, _do not read_.

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><p><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I do not own and have never owned A:tLA, and I am making no monetary profit from this story.

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><p>"No…"<p>

The word left her lips before she realized she was saying it, without any notion as to why she _should_ be saying it at all.

Oh, there were a few hints, some pieces that fell together of their own accord. The blue pillar of light she'd seen in the distance could only mean one thing: somehow, by whatever chance or miracle, Aang had unblocked his chakra and obtained the Avatar State. It could have gone out again for any number of reasons. Maybe Aang had won, and he simply didn't need to be in the Avatar State anymore. She should be feeling hopeful.

No matter how many times she told herself that, however, the only thing Katara could feel was a pit of dread in her stomach, an ominous premonition that was only growing stronger by the second. Try as she might, she could not shake the feeling that something was dreadfully, horribly wrong.

Zuko shifted at her side, one arm still wrapped around her shoulders for support. Glancing over at him, Katara could see that her own feeling of dread was perfectly mirrored in his face, which only served to amplify her own worry.

"Katara—"

"No." She shook her head emphatically. "Aang _is_ okay. He beat the Fire Lord, the war is _over_, and everything is going to be _fine_." Even as she spoke them, however, she knew that she was only saying the words to convince herself.

Thankfully, he dropped it—though she sensed that it was because he knew further arguing would have been pointless rather than because he agreed with her. Instead, he turned his attention to Azula, who still lay chained and sobbing on the ground.

Katara, taking her cue from him because she wanted—_needed_—to think about anything other than Aang, looked to the fallen princess as well. "What are we going to do about her?"

"I—" Suddenly, however, Zuko's attention was on something else entirely; removing his arm from her shoulders, he staggered forward, his eyes on the horizon. Following his gaze, Katara saw a small black dot rapidly making its way toward them through the unnaturally reddened sky.

Was that… Hawky?

Zuko held out an arm. The bird came to him willingly enough—it _was_ Hawky; only Sokka would tie a string of blue beads to the leg of a messenger bird—and Zuko opened the message tube on its back, unrolling the parchment that was sealed within. His good eye widened as he read the message before his arm fell down to hang limply at his side, the culmination of all the dread that had fallen on them a few minutes ago now showing in his face.

"The Avatar has fallen."

"No…" As she spoke, Katara stepped back from him, as if, instead of information, he had some sort of contagious disease.

"Katara…"

"_No!_" All at once, the puddles of water that still littered the arena froze solid, sheets of ice spiderwebbing out from where she stood. "Aang didn't _lose!_ _I_ trained him! _You_ trained him! Toph, and the monks before us, and Guru Pathik… Aang is the _Avatar!_ We didn't…"

Wordlessly, not looking at her, Zuko handed over the scroll.

Sokka's writing was still one of the sloppiest things she had ever seen—even more so than usual, given that the letter had been written in obvious haste. Still, Katara was sure she would have been able to read it all the way through, if only the characters hadn't suddenly gotten so _blurry_.

As it was, she only managed to make it through _"Aang lost, you need to get out of there"_ before hot water welled in her eyes. Sokka wouldn't joke about something this serious—and if she'd ever had any doubts as to whether he was mistaken, the scrap of cloth that had been rolled in with the parchment, a cheerful (and horribly familiar) shade of yellow but for the scorch marks and the liberal splattering of blood, had permanently removed them.

"…we didn't train him to lose." The scroll slipped from her numb fingers to land in the rapidly-thawing ice that now covered the arena. The scrap of cloth fluttered down beside it, immediately darkening as it soaked up the water.

"Katara." Zuko's hand was on her shoulder, and now he was meeting her eyes, the depths of her own pain mirrored in his yellow irises. "We have to leave. It's not safe for us here anymore."

"I—" A shudder went through her body, but she straightened her back, forcing herself to pull together. Aang wouldn't have wanted them to give up. "You're right."

A crashing noise from behind them drew her attention back to Azula, who was trying more desperately than ever to free herself. The princess was now straining violently against her bonds, and at every movement the chains jerked up against the grate, producing a clanging of metal on metal as tears poured down her face and blue fire out of her mouth. "What are we going to do about her?" Katara asked again.

A moment passed in silence. Then, however, Zuko let out a breath. "We have to take her with us."

Katara looked at him incredulously. "Zuko, she just tried to kill us both." She motioned to the angry burn that showed through the hole in his shirt, still red and weeping in spite of her best efforts. "In your case, she almost succeeded."

"I know." His voice was heavy. "But she's still my sister. And…" He looked over to Azula, whose efforts had accomplished nothing other than sending her face-first into the ground, screaming as a fresh onslaught of tears spilled from her eyes. "My father won't be any more merciful with her than he was with me."

Katara's mouth was already open to argue the point, but she found that not a single word would come out to back her up. Zuko was right. They hadn't left _him_ to freeze to death at the North Pole, even though they'd been bitter enemies at the time, because Aang had insisted otherwise. Azula, as twisted and sadistic as she was, should still have the same chance they had given her brother.

Slowly, she nodded, biting her lip. Even as she acquiesced, however, Katara could not help but throw further glances at the fallen princess, who, though she had grown much weaker now that the comet was disappearing from the sky, was still breathing jets of blue fire that had the potential to seriously hurt anyone who was careless enough to get in the way. "She's still dangerous."

"We'll have to keep her tied up, and keep a constant watch on her, day and night." When Zuko met her eyes, she saw the apology in them and knew that he knew exactly what he was asking of her.

She gave him a curt nod, more decisive this time, and did not break eye contact. "I understand."

"Could you tie her up more thoroughly?" The gratitude in Zuko's eyes showed only for a split second before he turned his head to look into the dark, empty palace. "I'm going to get us some supplies."

While Zuko disappeared into the shadows, Katara did as he had asked and went about binding Azula's hands and feet with fireproof rope. The princess, even though she did not seem lucid enough to consciously struggle, was determined not to make the job easy: her hands gave violent jerks at the most unexpected moments, and she never stopped moving long enough for Katara to get a proper grip on her sweat-slick wrists. Eventually Katara was forced to freeze her hands together just to give herself enough time to bind the rope properly.

She took no pleasure in the task. For so long now, Katara had hated and feared the Fire Nation princess, possibly even more so than she'd once hated Zuko. Zuko may have betrayed her trust, badly, but Azula was the one who had once taken Aang's life, and had just come heart-stoppingly close to taking Zuko's as well. Katara would have thought that she'd be furious, or at the very least gleeful that the once-proud princess had been brought so low. Instead, she only felt pity.

Once Katara had finished binding Azula's wrists, she un-froze her hands so that she would not suffer frostbite before starting in on her feet. As she continued doing what needed to be done, Katara forced herself to focus on the task at hand—and _only_ on that. She didn't think she could bear to think about Aang, or about the war and the crushing sense of hopelessness that had descended on her as soon as she'd realized they had lost. Nor did she want to think about what might have happened to Sokka, who would have been in the thick of the fighting along with Suki and Toph, or about what might have become of the members of the Order of the White Lotus—Master Pakku among them. She couldn't afford to break down right now, not when they were preparing to flee for their lives, and so she put all of her focus into her knots. By the time Zuko came back out, carrying a large traveling bag, Azula was securely bound.

Katara frowned as she set eyes on her friend. In the immediate aftermath of the battle she had been worrying about too many other things to look him over thoroughly, but now she couldn't help but notice that Zuko was visibly staggering as he walked, that beads of sweat were standing out against the too-pale skin of his forehead, that he had gingerly avoided putting the strap of the bag over his right shoulder, or that his breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. When Katara had healed him, she'd been so focused on mending the damage to his heart that she'd barely managed to touch the surface burns, and she realized that Zuko must still be in severe pain.

"Are you okay?" she asked, frowning even more when he let the bag drop to the ground rather than setting it down.

Instead of answering, he turned his attention to Azula. "There's no way she can get loose?"

"No." Katara ignored the way he had dodged the question—for now. "Water Tribe knots don't come undone."

"Good." He took a long look around the arena, as if fixing the place in his memory one last time. In spite of the urgency of their situation, she didn't press him. Now that the possibility of never seeing her home again had just become very, very real, Katara wished with a pang that she'd taken a better look at the South Pole before she had left.

"We need to get going," Zuko said at last, shaking himself out of his trance. "I'll go get Appa—"

"No, _I'll_ get Appa." She laid a hand on his arm. "You need to sit down."

That Zuko did not argue with her was a mark of both how exhausted and hurt he was, and how far their friendship had progressed in the short time they'd known each other as anything other than adversaries. When he sank to the floor of the arena, not even bothering to fold his legs underneath him, Katara was glad she'd insisted.

Appa was just outside of the arena. The bison did not even acknowledge her presence when she stepped up beside him. Instead, his gaze was fixed immovably on the eastern horizon—the direction of the Earth Kingdom. She was just beginning to think that Appa hadn't noticed her at all when he raised his head to the sky and let out a soft, low moan.

_He knows._ The knowledge washed over her with the force of an ocean wave, and Katara felt a sudden burning in her eyes as her heart lurched with empathy for the creature before her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, reaching up to bury both hands and face in Appa's thick fur—as close as she could get to hugging such a large animal. "I'm sorry." An answering rumble went through Appa's body in turn, and before she knew it sobs were tearing from her throat, her whole body shaking with every breath.

After a few minutes—or it might have been half an hour—of burying her grief in Appa's soft coat, however, she remembered that they were in the middle of a war (which they had just lost badly), that she had left Zuko, badly wounded, alone in the arena with his crazed sister, that her brother had been in the battle right along with Aang and she _needed_ to find out what had happened to him, and that they were running on borrowed time until people started returning to the palace, at which point they would need to be elsewhere.

"Appa." She pulled away from the bison, her voice low. Her tears had all dried in his fur. "We need your help."

Lowing softly, he turned to face her for the first time since she had come out to find him. His nose bumped into her stomach, as if he wanted Katara to do for him what he had just done for her. If it were physically possible, she would have.

Instead, she reached up to pat the sides of his face—it was as much of him as she could reach. "I know you miss Aang," she said, fighting a fresh wave of tears as she spoke Aang's name. "But we need to get out of here now. All of us. Zuko's hurt. The palace guards could be back at any minute. I don't… I don't want the rest of us to go out like this."

Once again, Appa breathed out, and Katara could have sworn that he had let out a sob. Then, however, he turned and started plodding back toward the arena.

"Thank you, Appa."

Zuko shot her a look of concern and relief when she came back into view with Appa by her side—she must have been gone longer than she had thought—but did not ask what had taken her so long, for which Katara was grateful. He had not moved from where she had left him.

"Let's get going." As Zuko pushed himself painfully to his feet, Katara hefted their supplies into the saddle. When she turned back to Zuko, she saw that his gaze was now on Azula, who was still struggling madly from her place on the ground but had only managed to squirm around to the other side of the grate.

"I could try to—"

"Let me." There was still plenty of water under the grate. Bending it to her will, Katara swept it up under the princess, making a moving wave of ice that deposited Azula on Appa's back before retreating back the way it had come. Appa growled slightly as the extra weight settled on his saddle, and Katara sent him a silent apology.

"I suppose that works."

"Yes it does. Come on." Before he could protest, she was at his side, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling his arm around her shoulders in turn. He blinked at her in surprise. "Katara, I'm—"

"Zuko, you can barely stand. Don't try to tell me you don't need help." She did not loosen her grip as she helped him walk up Appa's tail and into the saddle. Apparently too tired to protest further, he only gave a sigh of resignation as Appa obligingly lifted his tail to give them an even path.

Even as she helped him into a sitting position, she turned to Zuko once more. "What's the best way to get out of here while avoiding the airship fleet?"

For a moment, he seemed to consider. "Let's head for the Sun Warrior ruins," he said at last. "The island is off the fleet's course, and is of no real interest to anyone but historians. We should be able to lie low there."

Katara gave a decisive nod. Climbing onto Appa's head, she flicked the reins. "Yip yip."

The last of the red light from Sozin's Comet had faded from the sky as they flew, leaving behind a veil of dark blue covered with twinkling stars. It was much cooler up here than it was on the ground, and before long Azula's mad thrashing gave way to violent shivers; she was still soaking wet. Zuko looked at his sister with concern before turning back to her. "Katara…"

"I know." Letting out a sigh, she stood and made her way back to the saddle. With a few swift motions of her hands, the water had lifted from Azula's body.

"I d-d-don't n-need your h-help, you f-filthy p-p-peasant…" Her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak.

"I'm not doing it for you." Katara's words, however, lacked any real heat. Looking away from Azula, not wanting to interact with her for longer than was strictly necessary, she laid eyes on Zuko and saw to her concern that he was shivering as well.

"Let me see." The command brooked no argument—but it was still a gentle one.

In the end, Katara had to help him out of his shirt. By this point Zuko could barely move his arm without pain, and even the lightest touch to the center of the burn caused him to hiss in agony as burnt cloth peeled away from burnt skin.

Sokka, for all his talk of manhood, would have been screaming bloody murder by now. Even Aang had been unable to hold back his whimpering whenever she'd changed his bandages after Azula's lightning strike. Zuko gritted his teeth and dug his fingernails into his palms, but barely made a sound.

Thankfully, he had packed medical supplies—burn salve, antiseptic, dried leaves whose purpose she'd have to ask about later, and plenty of fresh bandages. As things stood, it looked as if Zuko was going to need most of them. Katara frowned as she examined his injuries in more detail than she had been able to earlier. The hand he had used to catch Azula's lightning was unhurt, but a series of red streaks started at his shoulder, becoming more pronounced as they ran down the right side of his chest until his skin broke out into the angry star-shaped burn right below his heart. It was as if he had been burned from the inside out.

"That was where I started to lose control of it," Zuko explained as she looked at his shoulder. "I wasn't in a proper stance—" He bit off his sentence, clenching his teeth in pain as she began cleaning the burns.

"Sorry." She winced. "But if this gets infected…"

"I know." He leaned his head back, squeezing his eyes closed. "Just do what you have to."

She moved as quickly as possible, not wanting to prolong his suffering. Once the burns had been cleaned, Katara gave him another healing session with the water, but it accomplished little. Yugoda had once taught her that even for the most skilled of healers, the body had limits of its own, and it seemed as if they had reached Zuko's. Unable to do anything else for him, Katara made use of the burn salve, dabbing it as gently as she could over the raw skin.

Once she had finished with that, she eased a hand beneath his back. "I need you to sit up now." When she was sure he could support himself, Katara began bandaging the burns. She worked in silence, the only sounds the wind in her ears, Zuko's jerky breathing, and Azula beside them squirming against her bonds.

"I think that's the best I can do for now," Katara said as she tied off the last bandage.

"It feels a lot better," Zuko admitted. A second later, however, a shiver went through his body as the night air blew across his bare skin.

Immediately he cupped his hands around his mouth and started breathing, every exhale producing a small puff of flame. It visibly reduced his shivering, but Katara could also see that it was wearing him out—he was sweating with the exertion, and each breath seemed to cost him more effort than the last. Between the exhaustion of battle and the wounds he had received, it was energy he didn't have to spare.

Frowning, Katara dug into their supplies again. Thankfully, she found three blankets at the very bottom of the bag, and pulled them out one by one, handing the first to Zuko.

"Thanks." He wrapped it gingerly around his shoulders.

"How much farther do we have to go?" Standing up in the saddle, Katara made her way back to Azula, who was still shaking with cold, and tossed the second blanket over her. In spite of her obvious discomfort, the princess immediately tried to throw it off, but was unable to move sufficiently to accomplish more than shifting it a little.

Zuko climbed up to Appa's head, peering out toward the horizon. "We're almost there. Look." Following his pointing finger, Katara saw a small dark landmass growing steadily bigger; she could just make out the spires of ancient buildings rising up from a lush jungle canopy.

Taking the reins, Zuko steered them toward the ground. As she peered over the edge of the saddle, Katara couldn't help but notice that the course he had chosen would lead them not into the ancient city, but into a strip of wilderness between the ruins and the beach.

Frowning, she turned her attention from the ground to her companion. "Zuko? Aren't we going to set down in the city?"

"The city is full of booby traps, and I doubt Aang and I managed to find all of them our first time here. Besides, it'll be harder to spot us if we're under the trees."

Katara's frown deepened. Zuko and Aang had always been a bit vague on what exactly they had found in the Sun Warrior ruins, and she had a hard time believing that a single firebending form was in and of itself enough to help them improve so drastically. While she didn't think that either of them had lied outright, Katara had reason to believe that there was something—something big—that they had left out. Still, she couldn't fault Zuko's logic, and if whatever information he and Aang had been withholding was too sensitive to share with their friends, she certainly wasn't going to press him for it with Azula in the back of the saddle; the princess had suddenly gone very, very still and was watching them with an attentive gaze that Katara didn't like one bit. So she quashed her curiosity and instead gave an affirmative nod.

They set down next to a small stream, well under the canopy of the trees but still within sight of the city. It was easy enough for Katara to get both their supplies and Azula down from the saddle, but they were presented with some degree of trouble by the saddle itself.

Katara had never fully realized how heavy or unwieldy the thing was without Aang there to airbend it off, and as she and Zuko struggled to lift even so much as an edge, she found herself fighting not to scream and cry in frustration. After a few minutes of struggle with no success, she reached her breaking point. "I can't _do_ this!" Dropping the edge she'd been holding, which elicited a cry of alarm from Zuko as the saddle nearly crushed his fingers, Katara turned her back on Appa and fell to the ground, wrapping her arms around her shins and burying her face in her knees.

It was only then, as she sat hunched on the uncaring ground of a foreign land, that the truth of what had happened truly hit her, the weight of it falling onto her shoulders with the force of a tidal wave. Aang was dead. The boy she had laughed with, played with, and fought side-by-side with, the boy she had watched grow from a carefree child into the savior of the world, her dear friend she had cared for deeply and might even have loved, was gone—forever.

Even worse, they had lost the war. She didn't know what had happened to her brother. She didn't know what had happened to her father. She and Zuko might have escaped with their lives, but they were two teenagers up against an entire nation—a nation that had again and again proven itself capable of murdering millions in its bid for power. Tears squeezed themselves from her eyes as she drew her knees in tighter to her chest. Azula's plan hadn't been in error: what hope they'd had had been burned to the ground along with most of the Earth Kingdom.

Dimly, she was aware of cautious footsteps approaching her from behind, gentle rustles in the undergrowth of the forest. They stopped beside her, close but still at least an arm's length away. She didn't turn to look. "Katara…"

"_Don't_ tell me to calm down!" Her breath was coming in choking gasps.

"I wasn't going to." Opening her eyes, she turned her head just enough to see Zuko kneeling down beside her.

"I can't do this," she repeated, much more quietly this time, and now the tears were flowing freely, running down her face to soak the cloth of her skirt. "I can't—" She brought a hand up to dry her face, only for the tears she'd wiped away to be immediately replaced by a fresh onslaught. "Aang's gone." Giving up on wiping her eyes, she instead covered her face with her hands. "Aang's _gone._ There's never going to be another Avatar—"

"What do you mean?" Zuko sounded genuinely alarmed, and when she turned to look at him again she saw that his good eye was widened in shock. "What do you mean, there's not going to be another Avatar? There _has_ to be another Avatar! I mean…"

"You really don't know?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She turned away. "Katara! What don't I know?"

All at once, she was no longer angry or frustrated. Instead, she only felt tired—tired and empty, as if she didn't have any tears left to cry.

"It's something Aang told us, after Roku told him." Her voice was so quiet that Zuko had to lean in a little in order to hear her. "He said—" She took a shaky breath. "He said that if he died in the Avatar State, it would break the reincarnation cycle. That blue light we saw couldn't have been anything _but_ the Avatar State."

A motion from the corner of her eye caught Katara's attention. Turning her head, she saw that Zuko had fallen the rest of the way to the ground, and that his face was now in his hands.

"Zuko… what do we have left? We lost, and the world's never going to be in balance again. It's _over_."

The silence stretched out between them. Slowly, numbness seemed to spread out over her body and mind, enveloping her in its welcoming embrace. She was so _tired_. All at once, the war seemed so pointless, their escape seemed so pointless, and Katara wanted nothing more than to sit here and not move ever again—

"It's _not_ over."

Startled, she brought her head up and turned to look at Zuko. His posture was weary, his face pinched with pain and stress, but he had a determined glint in his eye as he met her gaze and did not look away.

"Look, I know that things are bad right now," he continued, seeming more confident now that he had her attention. "The world's in the worst state that it's ever been in our lives—but we can't give up because of that. We're still alive, we still have each other, and there's a chance that the others—why are you looking at me like that?"

For the first time since that awful day had begun, Katara felt a smile creep onto her face. "Nothing. It's just—" More tears fell from her eyes, and she wiped them away gently, but the smile did not fade. "You sounded a lot like Aang right there."

Zuko's mouth hung open as he looked at her, giving him a rather comical expression. "I did?"

Still smiling, Katara pushed herself to her feet. "Yeah." She held out her hand. "You kind of did." Grasping the offered hand, Zuko allowed her to pull him to his feet.

Their mood sobered somewhat as they turned back to Appa, who was huddled on the ground in a miserable heap. "We still have to get the saddle off."

"Let's focus on that for now. We'll worry about everything else later."

In the end, Katara resorted to waterbending again. After convincing Appa to stand up, she bent the water from the stream into four pillars of ice that worked their way under the edges of the saddle, lifting it from Appa's back. Zuko then coaxed him to walk out from underneath it without breaking the ice. Once Appa was clear, Katara lowered the saddle gently back to the ground.

After that, they took things one step at a time. They made an adequate if not particularly memorable dinner of the dried food that Zuko had brought from the palace—with night fallen and the war lost, they did not dare to start a fire. Zuko even attempted to give a share to Azula, but the princess refused to eat.

"Don't torture yourself," Katara said, not unkindly, when he gave up, looking dejected. "One day without food isn't going to kill her. She'll eat once she gets hungry enough."

"Yeah," Zuko replied, though he didn't look encouraged. "I suppose you're right."

"So what's this?" she asked him a bit later, while they were cleaning up the meager remains of their meal. He leaned over to look into her hand, which held the dried leaves she had noticed earlier.

"An herbal tea," he explained, wrapping the remaining half of a loaf of bread before shoving it back into the bag. "For pain."

"Maybe you should have some, then." Zuko might have been good at not showing it, but she knew firsthand how much even minor burns could hurt. There was no way that he was not in pain.

For a moment, he seemed to consider it, but then he turned away and shook his head. "I can't afford to be woozy right now."

She crossed her arms. "And how does that compare to how you'll feel tomorrow if you can't sleep tonight?"

"I can sleep through pain, Katara." He tied the bag shut before hefting it back into the saddle. "I've had plenty of practice, after all."

Katara opened her mouth, only to find that she had nothing to say. Instead, she found herself giving a slow nod, accepting his decision. "I'll take first watch."

* * *

><p><em>"Father, please! I only had the Fire Nation's best interests at heart. I'm sorry I spoke out of turn!"<em>

_ "You will fight for your honor."_

_ He shook with fear. The palms of his hands were slick with sweat. His knees no longer had the strength to hold him up, and he collapsed to the floor of the arena…_

_ No._

_**No.**_

_ He was not going to do this again._

This is wrong.

_ The thought pushed him to his feet and into a fighting stance. Steadying his legs underneath him, he brought his arms up into the guard position._

_ "I'm ready to face you."_

_ Ozai smirked._

_ "Oh, is that so, Zuzu?"_

_ His eyes widened._

_ He turned…_

_ Pain tore through his body as lightning slammed into his torso. Azula was smirking in triumph… Ozai grinned with glee… Katara was calling out his name…_

"Zuko? Zuko!"

He came awake with a gasp, his eyes flying open only to find himself looking straight into Katara's startled blue ones. She lifted her fingers from his arm.

"Your watch," she explained.

"Thanks." He sat up, holding a hand to his head.

Katara took a step back, though she was still looking at him with concern. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He didn't ask how she had deduced his nightmare—there would have been no point in denying it. Instead, he began the motion of shaking his head. "I—"

A low rumble from beneath him interrupted his thoughts. Rather than using a sleeping bag, Zuko had bedded down on Appa's soft flank, much as they'd done when they'd rested outside the wall of Ba Sing Se a day ago, in another lifetime.

The bison had turned to look at him, fixing Zuko with liquid brown eyes. Opening his mouth, Appa let out a low rumble.

"Old memories," Zuko confessed, indicating his scar. "Some more recent ones, too." His hand drifted downward to brush over the bandages wrapped around his torso.

"I see." Katara's voice was quiet, but she did not look on him with pity—for which Zuko was grateful.

She knew the full story. He had told her himself, when they'd rested at his family's beach house after her confrontation with Yon Rha. Zuko had figured he owed her that much.

_"Why did you help me?"_ she'd asked. _"How is it that you, of all people, knew exactly what I needed?"_

He'd stared out at the ocean a long, long time before answering. _"The day I left the Fire Nation,"_ he'd said at last, _"I couldn't put my old life behind me until I confronted my father."_

He'd told her everything, then—the death of his cousin, his father's request and its consequences, the sacrifice of his mother, right up until the day of his scarring and banishment. Through it all, Katara had listened in silence, not saying a word even when he paused for several minutes, letting him speak at his own pace. Even then, she had been surprisingly easy to talk to, silent but attentive, her presence a strength that supported him but somehow managed not to coddle or smother.

When he'd finished, she had simply nodded, and then had taken her turn to stare out to sea. _"I guess,"_ she'd said at last, watching the moonlight sparkle over the waves, _"we have more in common than I thought."_

Now, she stood before him once again, asking him silently if he needed her help, even after everything she had already done—far more than any one person should have been able to.

"I'll be okay." He pushed himself gingerly into a sitting position, allowing Katara to pull him up the rest of the way. Once he was on his feet, she handed him a bundle of cloth.

It was his shirt, mended.

"I needed something to do with my hands." There was no need for her to say out loud what had already passed, silently, between them: she had been trying not to think.

"Thanks." He pulled the shirt on, allowing Katara to help ease it over his shoulders when the motion pulled at the still-tender skin of his burn. As soon as he was properly clothed, he turned to walk a decent distance away from Appa so that she could sleep in peace. After a few steps, however, he stopped and turned around.

"Can I—" Zuko took a deep breath. He was not good at this, never had been, but he needed to at least make the effort. "I mean—is there anything you need?"

Katara gave him a small, forced smile. "I don't think so." Nevertheless, her eyes softened in gratitude. "But thank you." Not bothering with a sleeping bag, she settled down on Appa's side, right next to the spot where he had slept. "Goodnight, Zuko."

"Goodnight, Katara."

Thankfully, Azula seemed to have fallen asleep by this point as well; he didn't know whether he'd be able to handle her right at this moment on top of everything else. Standing next to the saddle where they'd placed her to keep her from the damp, Zuko looked down at his sister, and wondered how it had come to this.

He couldn't even seem to grieve.

Aang had been his friend as well—the first real friend he'd ever had. While Mai and Ty Lee had certainly seemed to enjoy his company, and he theirs, it had always been with the uneasy understanding that they were Azula's companions, not his, and no matter how much they may have liked each other, he'd always wondered whether either one of them would even hesitate to take his life if his sister ordered them to.

…no, that wasn't true. He'd gotten his answer—back at the Boiling Rock.

Now, Mai's fate was unknown, but given that she had betrayed Azula to save his life, Zuko knew to expect the worst. Aang, who'd forgiven and befriended him after Zuko had spent months thinking only of his capture, was dead. Three more friends had last been seen heading to the same battlefield where Aang had fallen. Uncle would also have been in the thick of the fighting, and he did not think that Ozai would take the risk of leaving such a powerful man alone. If the two of them fought…

_Even if I could beat the Fire Lord… and I don't know that I could…_

Zuko buried his face in his hands. Uncle's chances weren't looking good either.

At the moment, he only had a single friend in the world, and that was Katara. Everyone else he could ever say he had loved was likely to be dead or worse—yet the only thing he could seem to feel was numb.

_Maybe that's why_, he thought. _Maybe everything that happened is so horrible that I don't __**want**__ to let myself feel._

Sighing, Zuko settled himself in the saddle, keeping his eyes on Azula, and pretended he couldn't hear Katara crying herself to sleep.

* * *

><p>Sunrise, as always, brought with it a feeling of revitalization. Today, however, that feeling was overwhelmed by the question of what they were going to do next.<p>

Unfortunately, Zuko was rather forcibly reminded of that question by something else the sunrise brought.

Azula blinked open her eyes as soon as the light touched her face. For a moment, she looked around groggily, as if unsure of where she was. The instant she laid eyes on Zuko, however, she sat bolt upright—only to come crashing back down into the saddle as her bonds restricted her from moving further. From the awkward position on her side with one cheek pressed into the surface of the saddle, she shot Zuko a venomous glare.

"Good morning, _brother_."

"Good morning, Azula." Even if he could have found it in himself to return her hostility, he just didn't have the energy anymore.

For a few minutes, she jerked her arms and strained her legs, but thankfully Katara's boast proved true: no matter how valiantly Azula thrashed, the knots held. Eventually even she was forced to give up, panting, the loose strands of her badly-shorn hair plastered to her sweat-stained face. She had ended up on her back, her bound hands trapped beneath her and forcing her body to arch in a way that looked incredibly uncomfortable. Her breath came in choking gasps, and as Zuko watched tears started to spill once again down her face.

This was the same girl who had always outpaced him in everything that was worth anything to their father, the same girl Zuko had bitterly envied from the moment he'd first understood the meaning of "not good enough." Now, sitting here and watching what she had become, Zuko could only feel pity.

_Banishing me was the best thing Ozai ever did for me_, he realized. _Had he given me his approval like I'd always wanted, there's a good chance I would have become __this__._

Unable to stand it any longer, he pushed himself toward her with the intention of moving her to a better position—but Azula jerked away as soon as he got within arm's reach.

"_Don't touch me!_"

"Azula, I'm trying to help!"

"I don't need any help from _you!_" Squirming away from him, she managed to get into a position on her side with her back against the edge of the saddle.

"Okay." Spreading his hands at his sides, he rocked back on his heels, putting himself at a more respectful distance. "What can I do to make you more comfortable?"

For a few seconds, she blinked at him, as if he'd addressed her in one of the made-up languages they'd used to invent as children. Then, however, she threw back her head and laughed, a loud uncontrolled cackle that sent birds scattering from the treetops in alarm. A low groan emanated from Katara in reaction and she rolled over in her sleep, pressing her face deeper into Appa's fur. Zuko winced; he had been hoping that she would have enough time to get a decent amount of sleep.

"Oh, Zuzu," Azula said when she had finally calmed down enough to speak. "Are you trying to tell me you actually _care?_" When he did not answer, she continued, "You know, you could untie my hands. Do you have any idea how much these things chafe?"

He didn't. Zuko had never been tied up for any length of time, at least not with the kind of ropes Katara had used—yet he also knew that they didn't have any other options, not where Azula was concerned. "Azula, you know we can't do that." He let out a sigh. "They wouldn't chafe so much if you didn't struggle so much." Nevertheless, he made a mental note to have Katara take a look at Azula's wrists once she woke up all the way.

"Hmph. That's easy for _you_ to say." Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself up into a sitting position, bracing her back against the side of the saddle. "You're not the one who'll have to be spoon fed every meal. I'm getting cramps because I can't move. How am I supposed to go to the bathroom like this?" she demanded, looking as if she were about to cry again.

"Um…" Heat rose to his face. That was yet another thing he hadn't thought of—but he was going to have to think about it, soon. He was going to have to ask Katara if she had any ideas—

"Why did you take me with you?" Once again, Azula's voice broke into his thoughts, her face contorting in the same way that it had on the cusp of her breakdown. "_Why couldn't you have left me there?_"

He looked at her, shocked, but could see nothing but mad rage in her eyes—rage, and confusion. "Azula, what do you think would have happened to you when Father got back?"

In response, her eyes narrowed. "Father trusted me to run the Fire Nation in his absence," she spat. "I'm not _you_."

"No," he said softly, looking away from her. "You're not." Several minutes passed in silence, the only sound Azula's ragged breathing.

"Azula," he said at last. "I think that what Father's done to you is worse than anything he ever did to me." Looking back, he met her eyes once more, to see that they were widened in shock. "At least he never pretended to love me." A harsh laugh escaped from his lips, and Zuko shook his head in an attempt to clear it. Azula had grown unusually quiet, and he took advantage of the silence, moving slowly closer so that he could look her straight in the eyes. "You were defeated," he said softly, "by a waterbender, at the height of your power. Do you really think Father would have let that go?"

There was no answer—but her lack of a retort gave Zuko hope that maybe, just maybe, he was getting through to her. Leaning forward, he watched his sister closely for any reaction—

He was so focused on Azula's face that when she moved, he had no chance to defend. The only warning he had was in the moment in which her confusion gave way to a snarl that twisted her mouth into a rather ugly expression, and before he could so much as blink she had braced her back against the side of the saddle and kicked out with both legs.

Pain exploded in his midsection as his sister's feet slammed into the wound she'd inflicted less than a day ago. A choked gasp escaped from his mouth as he was thrown over the side of the saddle, without enough breath in his lungs even to cry out. Dirt slammed into his face, filling his mouth with grit before he finally stilled. Almost of its own accord, his body curled into itself, desperate to protect his already-burned flesh from enduring even further punishment—

"Zuko? ZUKO!" Hands grabbed his shoulder, turning from his side to his back; he let out a groan, instinctively trying to curl back into his protective ball, but Katara's grip was surprisingly strong, and she held him down firmly until he gave up the fight, his body going limp on the hard ground.

Forcing his eyes open, he finally managed to focus on Katara above him, her own eyes wide in a near-panic. Already she was undoing his shirt, easing the cloth gently from his shoulders to get a better look at his injuries.

"I'll be okay," he managed, though his voice came out through clenched teeth. She ignored him, of course, instead coating her hand with healing water and pressing it gently against his midsection.

A moment later, she let out a sigh of relief. "It's mostly superficial." The water flowed gracefully from her hand back into her waterskin, and then that same hand was beneath his back, propping him into a sitting position. "You were about due for another healing session anyway." Looking down, Zuko saw that the bandages had begun to unravel thanks to the force with which he'd been hit, and were rapidly being soaked through by the clear fluid that was now seeping from his wound; he was unable to hold back a gasp of pain as Katara peeled back the gauze. "What happened?"

With the burn revealed, Zuko could see that the already-tender skin had been torn anew, and that a multitude of blisters had broken open and were beginning to ooze. "Azula," he said shortly. When the last of the bandages had come off, Katara eased him onto his back once more, and he forced himself to relax as she gloved her hands with water once again and gently covered the burn. "I let my guard down."

"Oh, Zuko…"

"You don't need to tell me what an idiot I am." He began to breathe easier as the pleasant cooling sensation of the water worked beneath his skin, seeking out the worst injury and repairing it. "Azula already took care of that part."

"No, I meant…" Katara glanced uneasily back to the saddle, before leaning in closer and lowering her voice. "How much longer do you plan to keep her with us? She's dangerous."

"She'll be a lot more dangerous to a lot more people if we let her go," Zuko pointed out. "I couldn't just leave her there, Katara. I couldn't." His last words ended on a whisper.

"I know." Hearing the pained resignation in her voice, Zuko looked back up at her and saw to his surprise that she really did understand. Mentally, he kicked himself—how could he have forgotten that he was not the only one here who had a sibling?

"Katara, I—" The rest of the words, however, died in his throat. All this time, Katara had been the one to support _him_, taking some of his weight to help him walk, watching his sister, tending his wounds—she had even fixed his shirt. How could he possibly offer comfort, when he was the one sprawled in a painful heap on the ground with her salving his burns?

"There." Before he could figure out the right words, Katara's voice broke into his thoughts. "How does that feel?"

"Better." Placing his palms against the ground, he pushed himself into a sitting position. "A lot better, actually." Movement was suddenly easier and much less painful, and the searing heat of the burns had decreased considerably. "Thank you, Katara." He remembered what she'd said the night before about thanking her, her tearful admonishment that he'd saved her life as well, but at this moment, given all they'd gone through together and all they were facing for the foreseeable future, Zuko suddenly felt that he'd never be able to thank her enough.

The only response she gave was a small shake of her head, smiling in that gentle way that seemed to be hers alone. "You're going to need at least a few more healing sessions." She handed him one end of a fresh bandage, which he held to his side while she wrapped the rest around his torso, covering the burn once more. "Lightning burns need a lot of care." As he pulled his shirt back on she bit her lip slightly, looking away. "You'll… probably have a scar."

In response, Zuko could only shrug. What was one more scar to him, anyway?

A sudden crashing noise drew their attention back to the saddle, where Azula had resumed her thrashing. A series of frustrated screams escaped from her as she redoubled her efforts to loosen the ropes.

"She was complaining about chafing earlier," Zuko remembered to tell Katara. He swallowed. "She also said she needed to go to the bathroom."

Katara didn't look happy to hear either statement, but nevertheless gave a resigned nod. "I'll take care of it," she said. "You feed Appa and get us some breakfast."

"You'll be okay?" No matter how thoroughly she was tied or how closely she was watched, Azula was still dangerous. His encounter with her that morning had proven as much.

"As long as I have water, I'll be fine." Rolling back on her heels, Katara pushed herself to her feet. "I don't intend to let my guard down around her."

"…right." Suitably chastised, Zuko followed suit to see to his share of the morning's chores. Nevertheless, he made sure to keep a close ear on Katara and Azula both, in case his sister got out of hand again.

Sneaking furtive glances over at the two as he used his knife to slice the broad, leafy plants that he knew Appa liked best, he could see that Katara had freed Azula's feet and tied her hands in front of her rather than behind her back, though they still remained securely bound. She then prodded Azula in the direction of the stream, her hand never moving more than a finger's length from the mouth of her waterskin. Then, they were out of sight behind a clump of bushes and Zuko could only listen, his entire body tense as he waited to see whether Azula would make a move. Whether she would hurt yet another person he cared about.

"This is _humiliating!_" Azula's shout rang through the forest, so loud that Appa lifted his head from his meal with a growl. Zuko absently patted his nose, not wanting to deal with an agitated ten-ton bison on top of everything else. "Tell me, _peasant_, haven't you ever heard of privacy?"

"You'll earn the right to privacy when I trust you enough to turn my back on you." Katara sounded so tired, and Zuko felt guilt churn in the pit of his stomach. "Right now, that doesn't look like it's going to happen for a _very_ long time."

The rest of their conversation consisted of more petty bickering in this vein, and not once did Katara's voice take on a tone of urgency or the sounds of battle erupt from behind the bushes. Nevertheless, relief welled through him when they finally stepped back into visibility, both whole and unharmed. Azula's face was flushed with humiliation, tears welling in her eyes, but she wouldn't look at either Katara or Zuko, instead keeping her proud gaze fixed on the ground.

"Zuko." Katara caught his eye as she pushed Azula back toward the saddle. "I need your help."

"Help" in this case turned out to mean restraining Azula, keeping her in a submission hold while Katara first pressed healing water to her raw and bleeding wrists, then wrapped them with gauze to prevent further chafing. Then, and only then, did they bind Azula's hands behind her back once again, ignoring the princess's insults in the process. Zuko even attempted to give her some food, but she responded by spitting fire at him, and he was forced to give up once more, instead joining Katara where she was running a brush listlessly through Appa's fur. Without a word, he passed her the bread and jerky that Azula had refused, along with the handful of edible berries he'd managed to forage along the riverside.

"Thanks." They sat down together against Appa's side, taking comfort from his familiar warmth while Katara ate.

"Actually, I was about to thank you." Zuko let out a sigh. "You could have killed Azula back at the palace, but you didn't. No one would have blamed you. Not even me."

The last sentence came out in a mere whisper, and Zuko found himself staring at his hands in his lap. It was true, he realized—Azula had done so much evil and caused so much pain, not only to him but to countless others as well. There were so many people in the world, Katara included, who had every right to want her dead.

A gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder, but he did not raise his head. "You might not have blamed me," Katara said softly, "but you wouldn't have been okay with it either."

"No." He turned to look back in the direction of the saddle, from which bursts of blue flame were now shooting into the sky in between screams of rage. "No, I guess I wouldn't have."

"I'm not a killer, Zuko." She set aside what remained of her breakfast, half-eaten. "I couldn't even finish off Yon Rha, and he murdered my mother. I'm not going to kill Azula."

"You didn't have to make her comfortable either. You went to a lot of trouble to help me with that, and it wasn't even your responsibility. Thank you."

"I understand why you're doing it." Her grip on his shoulder tightened. "Azula's hurt me, she's hurt you and she's hurt people we care about, but she's still your sister, and f-family has to look out for one another, and—"

Zuko couldn't have said when or how it happened, or who moved first. All he knew was that suddenly, they were in each other's arms, one of his hands buried in her hair and the other holding snugly to her waist, her arms wrapped around his midsection in turn as though clinging to a lifeline. Katara's entire body shook, her face pressed into his shoulder, and already Zuko could feel a spot of dampness spreading through the cloth of his shirt, but his own tears still would not come.

He couldn't even reassure her.

What was he supposed to say? 'It's okay'? It obviously wasn't. 'I'm sure that they're safe'? Almost everyone either of them had known and loved had last been seen rushing into a war zone, and at least one of their friends was confirmed dead. 'We'll figure something out'? They had no resources, no allies, no Avatar, and he was a wanted fugitive. 'There's still hope'? There wasn't. The only hope they had left was of surviving to see another sunrise.

What would Uncle say?

"We can't… we can't give in to despair." It was essential for him to get this right. No half-hearted impersonations, no silver sandwiches. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Hope is… hope is something you have to give yourself. We can make it, as long as we keep up our inner strength."

Katara sniffled. "Do you really believe that?"

He tightened his grip, pulling her closer. In his memory, he could almost feel a pair of warm, strong hands grasping his own shoulders, always supporting him when he needed it no matter how many times he had denied that need. "Uncle said something like that," he murmured. "I didn't understand, at the time. Now, I think I understand a little better."

"Yes." When she pulled away from him, he let her go, watching her wipe her eyes and wondering whether it was good or bad that he didn't need to do the same. "You're right. We _can_ give ourselves hope. We need to find out what happened to the others." Without any more discussion, as if they had planned it that way all along, they rose from Appa's fur and began packing their meager supplies.

As they repositioned the saddle and took once again to the air, Zuko wondered whether Katara knew that he had needed the comfort and reassurance as much as she had.

* * *

><p>"So where are we going again?"<p>

Zuko turned to look back at her from his position at Appa's head. Beads of water clung to his hair and clothing; Katara was bending the moisture in the air into a mist around them, making Appa his own personal cloud in the hopes of obscuring their presence. Hopefully anyone on the ground who happened to look up wouldn't think it too odd that such a small puff of mist was moving independently of its neighbors.

Hopefully.

"Any small town or village," he replied. "It doesn't matter which, as long as it's out of the way. Hopefully I'll be able to get in contact with someone from the Order of the White Lotus."

There was that word again. Hope. Outwardly, she frowned. "Didn't they all go to Ba Sing Se?"

"Everyone who could fight, but there were some non-combatants in the Order as well. If anyone is well-connected enough to help us, it's them."

A long, protracted laugh sounded from behind them. Turning, Katara shot a glare at Azula, who was watching them with the same amused expression she'd worn when Zuko had declared that he would fight her for the throne. "What's so funny?" she demanded.

"Oh, nothing. Little Zuzu is just _so_ hilarious." Zuko's shoulders stiffened at her use of the hated nickname, but he didn't show any other outward reaction, keeping his eyes determinedly on their course.

"You really are pathetic, both of you," Azula continued when neither of them responded. "You peasants never did know when to give up, and Zuzu didn't either. You should have learned by now to know when you're beaten." By this point Katara was clenching her teeth so hard that they hurt in her efforts to avoid reacting, to keep from showing Azula how effective her taunts actually were. _Concentrate on the waterbending. Just focus on the bending…_

"It's pitiable, really." Azula let out a long-suffering sigh. "It couldn't be more obvious that the Fire Nation is the superior people. It was only a matter of time before we won. Maybe if you'd cooperated, you would have been able to share in our greatness. Instead you'd rather cling to your silly notions of 'independence' and 'identity,' and we have to drag you kicking and screaming into the modern era." In spite of herself, Katara felt her eyebrow twitch. Ignoring the princess was all well and good, but Azula had a knack for getting under people's skin. "Oh, that reminds me," Azula said brightly. "Have I ever told you about that time that poor Zuzu was _so_ upset that I'd started bending before he could even make a spark, and he—"

"Azula." Even Zuko, it seemed, could only hold out for so long. "What do you hope to accomplish by doing this?" Annoyance and anger were notably absent from his voice. Now, he only sounded tired.

"Oh, nothing." Azula spoke as casually as if he were a servant who'd offered her tea. "I was just hoping to share some old memories with my _darling_ brother." She smirked pointedly in Katara's direction. "After all, there's no telling when we'll next be… _separated_."

Moving was not a conscious action. The only thing Katara knew was that all at once, she'd broken her stance, strode over to Azula and grasped the edges of her chestplate, dragging her up so that their noses were mere inches apart. "Say. That. Again." Her voice came out in a deadly whisper.

Azula's only response was to smirk in her face.

"_Katara!_" Zuko had also risen from his position, his hand reaching out as though prepared to physically drag them apart, his eyes wide with panic. That Azula had finally managed to get to her. That she was letting their cover blow away. That she might hurt his sister…

Rage at the princess was still coursing through her veins, but the genuine fear in Zuko's voice brought her back to a place where she could think and act rationally. Gritting her teeth, she pried her fingers from Azula's armor—the act was akin to letting go of frostbitten metal—and none too gently dropped her back into the saddle.

"Hey! Is this how they treat royalty where you come from, _peasant?_"

"Shut up. Just… shut up." With a brief sweep of her arms, she renewed their cover before kneeling down to dig into the saddlebags. Zuko continued to watch her apprehensively.

"I'm not going to hurt her," she reassured. Finding an old shirt that was too worn to wear, she tore off a strip of cloth before tying a wide knot in the middle. "I just can't take any more of this."

Zuko visibly relaxed when he figured out what she was doing. Still, he did not take his eyes off of them as Katara made her way back to where she had dropped Azula, none too gently lifted her head, and tied the gag in her mouth. The princess squirmed and made muffled noises of protest, but couldn't otherwise make a sound, and she would not be able to set the gag on fire without burning herself. As Katara resumed her waterbending, she caught Zuko's eye with a look of apology.

Though he did not express any anger, his eyes were downcast as he looked away. They didn't speak again until they had landed.

"This should be close enough," Zuko murmured as they slid from Appa's saddle. Even though there were no other people in sight, he kept his voice low. "We're still a ways away, but there shouldn't be any problems getting there on foot."

"Right." Katara gave a nod as they began covering Appa with as much brush as they could manage. "So what's the plan?"

For a moment, Zuko considered. "I shouldn't show my face in public if I can avoid it," he said at last. "I'd be too easily recognized." Much as she hated it, there wasn't any arguing with that statement.

"One of us needs to keep watch on Azula at all times," he continued, "and since I'm not even sure if this town has what we're looking for, I think that you should go in first."

"Seems reasonable." She brushed a hand over Appa's nose in an effort to calm her nerves. "So what am I looking for, anyway?"

Uneasily, Zuko's eyes flicked up to Azula before he gave a quick jerk of his head. Getting the message, Katara followed him.

"I need you to find any sort of inn or tavern with a Pai Sho table," he whispered as soon as they were out of hearing distance. "If it's anything like the time Uncle got in contact with the White Lotus, there should be someone sitting there waiting for a game."

Katara nodded. "And then?"

"Come back and give me directions. I saw what Uncle did and I'm pretty sure I remember it, but it's kind of hard to explain."

As Katara slipped behind a bush to change into her stolen Fire Nation clothes, she could hear Zuko nervously pacing back and forth. When she emerged, clad in the same scarlet she'd worn up until the day of the invasion (hiding herself), he handed her a small pouch that clinked slightly as it moved.

"Fire Nation money," he explained. "It's not much, but it should get you a meal, and anything else you might need as cover."

"Thank you." She extended her hand in turn. "Could you hold onto this for me until I get back?" Obediently, he held out his hand, and she placed her mother's necklace in his open palm.

Zuko's good eye widened in shock as he realized what it was he held. "Katara… this is… I mean, I _stole_ this from you once."

Ever so slightly, she felt the corner of her mouth lift upward in a smile. "I'm not going to distrust you with that after you took a bolt of lightning for me." Her fingers encircled his, gently pushing them closed. "Keep it safe, okay?"

Eye still wide in disbelief, he slowly pulled away, and as she tied on the Fire Nation choker she had bought—not to replace it, but because she simply felt naked without the familiar gentle weight around her neck—he brought her mother's necklace in to rest next to his heart. "I will."

After that, there was nothing more to say. They held each other's gazes for a moment longer, and then Katara pushed her way through the undergrowth to step out onto the road.

Though a bit dusty, it was in fairly good repair, and as Zuko had said, the walk was not a strenuous one. By the time she reached the town, Katara was not even tired.

She heard the village well before she saw it. As she got closer her ears were assaulted by a barrage of explosions and shouts, and when she got within visual range, she even saw the occasional fire blast streaking up into the sky. What in the world were they—

It hit her like a blow to the stomach. The Fire Nation had won the war. The people in this town were _celebrating_.

Of their own accord, her feet halted where she stood. _I'm in enemy territory_, she thought. _I'm about to walk right into a town that's busy celebrating the deaths of my friends and family… Tui and La, they're acting like it's some sort of __holiday__!_ Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

_No. I… I have to do this. Zuko's counting on me. This is our best chance to find out what happened to Sokka and the others._ Slowly, her fists unballed as she forced herself to relax. Squaring her shoulders, Katara took a deep breath and resumed her march with renewed purpose.

No one spared a second glance for her as she strode into the town. Even those sufficiently sober to make note of her dark skin or blue eyes were too caught up in the celebrations to think anything of the single outlier who didn't quite belong. Besides, no one expected a member of the Water Tribe to be found this far inland, or this close to the equator. It was amazing how easy passing became when no one was on the lookout for her specifically.

After a few minutes of aimless wandering and dodging the festivities as best she could without drawing undue attention, Katara managed to locate a tavern. Deciding that this was as good a place to start as any, she ducked inside.

Immediately her stomach rumbled as her nostrils were assaulted by the aroma of roasting meat. Suddenly, she was keenly aware that every meal she'd eaten since they'd fled the capital had consisted of dry bread and jerky, and that she'd only made it through half of her breakfast that morning. Her mouth began to water in a way that would have made her brother proud, and right then and there she decided to make use of the money that Zuko had given her.

Settling herself at a table that was as out of the way as possible, Katara ordered a meal. She never lost sight of her purpose, however, and while she was waiting for her food to arrive, she discreetly scanned the room.

There! Situated in a veil of shadows in the opposite corner of the room, there was a Pai Sho table, and sitting idly behind that table was an old woman. Both table and woman were so unobtrusive that Katara doubted anyone not looking for them specifically would even notice they were there.

"Here you are, Miss." Her train of thought was broken when the waiter set her bowl down in front of her.

"Thanks." Picking up her chopsticks, Katara lifted the noodles to her mouth. By this point she was so hungry it felt as if her stomach had a hole in it, and the needs of her body forced her to give her full concentration to the task at hand, but it gave her none of the pleasure that she normally got out of a good meal. It was just another chore that had to be done.

"Excuse my rudeness, but what is _wrong_ with you?"

"Hm?" Lifting her eyes, Katara saw that the waiter was looking at her with an expression of incredulity.

Curiosity quickly gave way to panic as she frantically tried to figure out what he was talking about. Were her manners really that bad by Fire Nation standards? Did she have an accent that had given her away? Had she failed to pay some form of respect, or honor some long-held custom? They'd never had these sorts of problems when they were traveling in the Fire Nation before!

Instinctively, her hand moved to hover over the cup of scalding hot tea that had come with her meal. Even without her waterskin, there was more than enough water here to fight her way out if she had to, especially with the tricks she had learned from Hama—but Katara would only be able to make a clean escape if she started fighting _now_, before the waiter brought further attention to whatever it was she had done to give herself away as an outsider.

While she was still wrestling with herself over whether to blow her cover while the going was still relatively good or hope that her disguise had held so that they didn't have to begin their search all over again, the young man spoke again. "Look, I know that this is none of my business, but the Fire Nation won the war yesterday! It's not patriotic to sit around moping on a day like this—people are going to start thinking the wrong things."

The people at the next table over had now started to pay attention as well, and Katara knew that the window for her to safely fight her way out was rapidly closing. The look of genuine concern in the waiter's eyes, however, gave her pause. Unless he was an excellent actor, in which case she was already in serious trouble, he wasn't threatening to turn her in—he was trying to warn her before someone else did.

Maybe she could get out of this without a fight after all.

"I know everyone in the Fire Nation is celebrating." As she spoke, Katara subtly allowed her hand to drift away from the tea. "It's just… my b-boyfriend died yesterday, and my brother and some of my friends were on the airship fleet…" She didn't even have to fake the tears. Unable to speak any longer, she buried her face in her hands.

All around her, there were murmurs of sympathy. "I—I'm sorry," the waiter stammered. "I didn't know."

"Barbarians," another man grumbled. "They'll kill anyone indiscriminately—doesn't matter whose husband or brother or son."

All at once, her grief was overwhelmed by a wave of anger. 'Kill indiscriminately'? She remembered the massacre they'd found in the ruins of the Southern Air Temple, the evidence still there even a hundred years after the fact; remembered her mother's body, cold and unmoving, on the floor of their house. Fortunately, nobody seemed to expect her to reply, giving her the space that she needed as she fought for control under the pretense of sobbing into her hands.

Slowly, the sympathetic murmurings gave way to the ever-present drone of ordinary conversation, and Katara realized with relief that they had decided to let her be. Somehow, she managed to force down the rest of her meal—after the conversation she'd had, even the thought of food repulsed her, but she badly needed whatever nourishment she could get, and had no idea when she'd next have the chance to eat. Nobody gave her a second glance as she made her way back outside—as a matter of fact, it seemed as if the rest of the tavern's patrons were actively avoiding eye contact. When she stepped out into the sunlight, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Believe it or not, I know how you feel."

Whipping around into a fighting stance, Katara turned to face the source of the voice, her hand moving automatically to where the mouth of her waterskin normally rested—but saw that it was only the waiter who'd served her earlier. He appeared to be on some kind of break.

"My brother died in the war," he continued as though she hadn't been ready to skewer him—the movements of waterbending must have been unknown in this part of the Fire Nation. "I was twelve." In spite of herself, Katara felt sympathy welling up in her, and relaxed her stance. "I know it's not the most patriotic thought, but there are times I wish the war hadn't ended. Then I'd be able to get back at the dirt savages and snow peasants that did it. Only one more year, and I'd have been old enough to enlist." He laughed softly, not in the least bit worried about Katara's clenched fists or narrowed eyes; he seemed to have misread the target of her anger.

She gave a brief nod, hoping to end the conversation quickly; all at once the only thing she could think about was the need to get out of here, _now_, before she did something that would bring the whole town down on her head. "I'm sorry," she managed.

"So am I." The words carried more than a hint of irony. "I suppose that things aren't all bad, though. At least we can rest assured that their deaths were avenged, even if we couldn't do it ourselves." He gave one last stretch; it seemed that he was about ready to go back inside. "After all, the Avatar is gone, as well as the traitor Iroh."

All at once, Katara went from feeling as if she were about to explode with rage, to feeling as if her insides had turned to ice. "Could you… repeat that?"

* * *

><p>Zuko made no effort to hide his relief when she stepped back under the canopy of the trees.<p>

"Katara! You're okay!" He left Appa's side, where he had been absentmindedly sinking his hand into soft fur, and held his hands out to her. One held her waterskin, the other her necklace. "You took so long, I thought…"

"It's okay," she reassured him, forcing out a small smile. "I can take care of myself." In truth, she had walked much more slowly than was strictly necessary all the way back down the dusty road, and her pace had had nothing to do with either weariness or the need to digest her lunch.

"Something's wrong." It wasn't a question.

"I—" She bit her lip. She had rehearsed this moment over and over again on the return trip, and hadn't come to a single conclusion as to what was the right thing to say. There was one thing, however, that she had decided on for sure: he was going to hear this from _her_, not from some stranger in passing as she had done.

"Zuko, there's something I need to tell you."

* * *

><p>Katara absently reached up to pat Appa's head, taking comfort from the bison's familiar warmth—a nervous gesture she had been repeating on and off all afternoon. In truth, there wasn't much else for her to do—she'd given Azula some water and a small amount of food, but had immediately gagged her again after she was finished, not wanting to deal with what the princess would likely say if she were able. Now, the only thing left was to wait and worry.<p>

_"Give me fifteen minutes, plus however much time it took you to walk into town and back. If I'm not back by then, you need to g—"_

_ Her crossed arms and intense glare were enough to make Zuko grind to an abrupt halt, and Katara didn't need to speak a single word to get her message across: _Don't you dare tell me to run away and leave you behind.

_ "…then you'll know that something's gone wrong," he amended. Still, it was evident that he hadn't finished, and after a brief moment of hesitation, he held out his hand. "Could you… hold onto this for me?"_

_ "Of course." When she held out her hand in turn, Zuko placed a small dagger lightly into her palm._

_ "Keep it safe for me, okay?" From the way his voice thickened as he spoke the words, Katara needed no further information to guess the significance of that particular keepsake._

_ "I will." Her fingers closed around the hilt of the knife, accepting his trust in her as she had once trusted him._

_ After that, there was nothing more to say. Before leaving, Zuko had donned a light cloak, pulling the hood low over his face, but it was a paper-thin disguise at best. If anyone in that town even _glanced_ at his scar… By the time Katara had opened her mouth to question the wisdom of their plan, however, he was already gone, slipping onto the road behind a small convoy of wagons, and she would not be able to call him back without drawing undue attention to them both._

For possibly the hundredth time in the past half hour, Katara let out a worried sigh. For what felt like the thousandth, she seriously considered tossing their plans to the wind and going in after him. They didn't _know_ that the inhabitants of the town were too drunk or too busy celebrating to notice a supposedly-exiled prince walking right into their midst. Zuko was unarmed, and still wounded; he was in no condition to fight his way out if things went badly—and given the distance to the town, if he _did_ get in some kind of trouble, by the time Katara even realized something was wrong, it would be far too late.

Right now, the only thing stopping her was Azula. Even tied up, the princess was dangerous; Katara didn't know what she might be capable of if left to her own devices, and she didn't much care to find out.

Also, a small voice that sounded like Aang's whispered to her that, even if Azula was as secure as they thought, it would be wrong to leave her, alone and defenseless, by the side of a deserted road with only Appa for company.

Not to mention that she was now the only family Zuko had left…

Katara bit her lip as she recalled the shock on Zuko's face when she'd told him, the wide-eyed stare followed by the slow, wordless shaking of his head in a desperate denial. When she'd tried to reach out to him, he'd turned away and said, flatly, that they had to stick with their plan. All throughout his preparations, however, she'd seen him biting back the pain, trying to find something, _anything_, to keep his mind occupied so that he wouldn't have to think about what he'd lost.

_How many more?_ she wondered. _How many more loved ones are we going to lose before this is over?_

The sound of footsteps jerked her out of her thoughts. Immediately dropping her restless pacing, Katara crouched low, one hand hovering over the mouth of her waterskin. Only a few travelers had come down this road during Zuko's absence, and all of them had passed by without taking any notice of her hiding place, but her heart began thundering frantically in her chest every time she heard approaching voices, and no matter how securely she tied Azula, the princess always found a way to start thrashing around in an effort to draw the attention of any passerby. So far, Katara had been lucky: those people who had passed them earlier had all been in groups, and had been making enough noise themselves to drown out Azula's squirming and muffled screams, and she'd been able to relax after with a profound sense of relief that this time, at least, they hadn't been caught.

This time, however, the travelers weren't conversing. Worse yet, they were on foot, rather than employing the Komodo rhinos that seemed to be the Fire Nation's choice beasts of burden. Unless they were both deaf, there was no way they could fail to hear Azula, and no way to mistake her struggles for the foraging of an animal, not at this distance. If they decided to investigate…

"Katara?" The leaves before her parted, and Zuko's face came into view.

It was the most welcome sight she'd seen all day. Dropping her guard, Katara rushed forward and threw her arms around him.

"I was _so worried_. I'm so glad you got back safely, and—" Looking over his shoulder, Katara caught sight of the other person whose footsteps she'd heard. It was the old woman she'd seen sitting at the Pai Sho table in the tavern where she'd eaten.

"This is Guan Yin," Zuko explained, extracting himself from Katara's embrace. "She says that the Order of the White Lotus will help us as much as they're able."

"I—thank you." Katara gave a deep bow to the woman, who nodded her head in turn, before turning back to Zuko. "Did you explain everything?"

"Yes, on the road."

Guan Yin clasped her hands in front of her. "We can make arrangements for the princess and for your bison, and we will put our every effort into getting information on the fate of your companions."

All at once, Katara's throat seemed to close. Lost for words, she could only bow once again, knowing that the gesture was completely insufficient to convey the depths of her gratitude.

* * *

><p>Appa was housed in an old unused barn. "We used to keep our Komodo rhinos here," Guan Yin explained, "before the governor had them seized for military use." No troops were likely to come looking for them here, however, not with the war won and the once-thriving farm left destitute due to the loss of its beasts of burden. It seemed as if the members of the other nations were not the only civilians who were suffering thanks to the warmongering of the Fire Lords.<p>

With that, they were left alone for the night. As soon as Appa's saddle was removed and a liberal amount of hay put in front of him, Zuko excused himself with the explanation that he wanted to speak to Guan Yin. Katara did not ask what he was doing: it was clear enough that he didn't want company. So she preoccupied herself with grooming Appa, running a brush through his matted fur and scrubbing gently in between his toes to clear the mud. She tried not to cry as she recalled her brother's lighthearted complaints over being assigned the same task.

_Sokka, where are you? Please, Tui and La. Please let them be okay._

The light in the windows was fading by the time Guan Yin came into the barn with a tray of food.

"Thank you." Katara pulled the tray into her lap, reaching for the chopsticks, but then hesitated at the last second. "Where's Zuko?" He should eat as well, and he hadn't had a healing session since early that morning. At the very least, she would need to change his bandages before they went to sleep.

The old woman let out a sigh. "He wanted to know what information the Order of the White Lotus had as to the fate of General Iroh. He thought that maybe… he mentioned that the Avatar had once lived even when the world thought him dead. The answer I had to give him… was not the one that he'd hoped for."

"I see." No longer hungry, Katara set the tray aside. "Where is he now?"

"There is a sakura tree behind the house. I have been making sure he does not do anything to draw attention, but we are out of the way, and no longer have anything of interest to the Fire Nation military. The risk is low."

Katara took a brief moment to consider. Earlier, Zuko had clearly needed time to himself. Then again, Zuko was also her friend; though she was willing to give him his space if he needed it, Katara simply couldn't stand by and watch him hurt without at least checking. Brushing bits of straw from her clothes, she pushed herself to her feet. "Can you take me to him?"

Guan Yin inclined her head. "Follow me."

The path she pointed out led Katara from the barn to the back of the house without ever coming within sight of the road. Guan Yin retreated back inside immediately after showing her where to go, and Katara knew that she would not interfere in whatever happened next.

Incense stung her nose well before she came into view. As she made her way around a clump of bushes, however, Katara could clearly see the old sakura tree, its blossoms long since fallen, as well as the figure that was hunched at its base.

"Zuko?" she whispered, but received no response. The way he was kneeling, it looked as if he never intended to move again.

Slowly, Katara began her approach once more. Though she was making no effort to conceal her footsteps, he did not turn around.

She came to a stop a few paces behind him. Looking over his shoulder, Katara could see the sticks of incense that she had smelled, now burned down to nubs; in between them, propped up against some rocks, was a portrait of a man she had met only thrice and spoken to even more rarely, but she recognized him immediately. General Iroh.

"Zuko." Closing the rest of the distance, she knelt at his side. Still he made no acknowledgement of her presence, but continued to stare at the ground, his shoulders slumped listlessly, nothing like the fiery prince who had fought her, insulted her, and eventually befriended her, but through it all had never, ever given up. Katara hated seeing him like this.

Instinctively, she reached out a hand, but then drew back, not sure whether she would be overstepping any boundaries. Zuko might have let her hug him before, but it had always been on her initiative. This time, Katara wasn't sure whether he would want any comfort, or whether it would even matter if coming from her.

The memory of him approaching her while she slumped despairing on the ground was what made up her mind. Slowly, always prepared to pull back if the gesture proved unwelcome, Katara reached out again, letting her hand come to rest lightly against his shoulder.

Though he shuddered slightly at her touch, Zuko did not pull away or order her to leave. A few seconds later, he trembled again, and this time the shaking worked its way through his entire body.

At this, Katara sank to her knees beside him and wrapped her arm fully around his back, squeezing gently. The first tremor was followed by another, and another, his every breath coming in a choking gasp.

She wasn't sure how long they knelt there, but stars were visible overhead by the time his breathing had evened out, the choking sobs giving way to harsh wheezes before slowly returning to a normal cadence. By the time Katara had managed to coax him inside for food and medical attention, the lights had gone off inside the house.

It wasn't until they were getting ready to bed down for the night that Zuko spoke again.

"At least I got to tell him."

Katara did not ask what.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _Wow_ that is a personal record-setter for chapter length. Before anyone goes anywhere, though, I have a bit of an announcement:

This story was inspired by an album. As such, I'm going to try something a bit new, and host a contest to see who can guess what it was. The prize is a oneshot of your choice (within reasonable limits), written by me, for anyone who manages to guess the correct answer prior to the release of Chapter 9 (whose title is the same as the song that inspired it).

The Rules:

-One guess per person. Responses with multiple guesses will be automatically disqualified.

-Submit all entries under the subject heading "Ripples in the Water Contest." Do _not_ leave your guess in a review. I'm trying to keep this fun for everyone, and I don't want one person spoiling things for everyone else. I would strongly prefer people to submit by PM, but for those of you who don't have an account on FFNet, I can also be contacted at lazy888 at mail dot com.

-If you are submitting by email, use plain text _only_. Understand that, for reasons of security, I cannot accept emails that contain attachments, nor can I open any links. Emails with attachments will be deleted unopened.

-You are allowed to change your entry an unlimited number of times. If you initially submitted one guess but decide later on that another album works better, I will allow you to change your answer, but your latest answer is the only one that will be counted. If you got it right the first time but then changed your mind, you're out of luck.

The only hint I'm giving at this time is that the album in question has a total of 13 songs, and no bonus tracks. I also listen to a _huge_ variety of music - the only genres I actively dislike are country and rap, so if the genre exists (and isn't country or rap), odds are you've got a shot.


	2. Rekindled

"Okay. That's the best I can do." Katara pulled her hands away, bringing the water along with them; she would not meet his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Zuko looked down. The scar stood out pink and shiny against his skin, a star-shaped patch of discoloration slightly bigger than the span of his hand. It was yet another mark he would bear for the rest of his life, but it was easily covered, and as far as scars went he'd already had much worse.

"It's fine." He shrugged back into his shirt, wondering if there was anything he could say that could truly convince Katara that he meant it. "You saved my life; that was more than enough. Besides…" One of his hands brushed unconsciously over the newly-healed skin. "I think I've earned my scars."

Even as he spoke, Katara's eyes widened. "Zuko, you don't think you deserved—?"

"What? No! No, of course not. At least…" His voice dropped to a near-whisper. "Not anymore." The day after the bandages had come off his third week at sea, he'd ordered every reflective surface removed from his ship, because whenever he'd looked in the mirror all he'd been able to see was his disgrace in his father's eyes. "I meant that I got them doing something that was worth the pain." He sighed. "At least this time I actually managed to save someone." Katara laid a hand on his shoulder.

The moment was broken by a knock on the door, and Zuko felt rather than saw Katara stiffen beside him. Over the week that they'd been here, Guan Yin had been in constant contact with those fragmented individuals who were all that remained of the Order of the White Lotus, who'd brought them piece of bad news after piece of bad news. Even though the airship fleet had fallen, Phoenix King Ozai had personally burned huge swathes of the Earth Kingdom to the ground. Broken and facing starvation, those few who remained in the coastal areas had only been able to surrender. Pakku, Bumi, and Jeong Jeong had fallen in the battle for Ba Sing Se. Zuko had officially been declared a traitor, and wanted posters bearing his face had gone up all over the Fire Nation.

The worst, however, had come only the day before. One of the younger and more able-bodied Order members had ventured to the burned-out husk that had once been a large swathe of the Earth Kingdom's farmland in a brave effort to find some clue as to the fate of those who'd worked to bring down the airship fleet.

He had come back with a black sword, hilt dulled by soot and singed with scorch marks, which had been resting in the ashes alongside the twisted remains of several airships and the bodies of soldiers in Fire Nation armor.

Katara had taken it wordlessly, holding it close as if the sword were a person she could hug, shoulders shaking and tears running down her face. Neither one of them had noticed the messenger leave.

Now, they exchanged a glance, steeling themselves with a determined nod before Katara turned back to the door. "Come in."

When Guan Yin pushed open the door, she was accompanied by a young man with shaggy brown hair and eyes of Fire Nation yellow. Though young, it was obvious why he had not joined the Order's siege on Ba Sing Se: his right arm was missing from the shoulder down, the empty sleeve hanging loosely at his side.

"This is my grandson, Shen." The man in question gave a quick bow, his left hand held against his chest.

Like most of the Order members they'd met thus far, he did not stand on ceremony after introductions were made, instead getting right to the point. "We've found some of your companions."

Zuko was forced to swallow a sudden lump in his throat at those words. On the second day of their stay, they had sat down with Guan Yin and given her a list of names, so long that the Order couldn't possibly have any hope of finding them all. Sokka, a warrior of the Southern Water Tribe. Toph Beifong, alias the Blind Bandit, a blind earthbender and Earth Kingdom noble. Suki of Kyoshi Island, leader of the Kyoshi Warriors. Mai, a Fire Nation noble. Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe. Haru, Teo, The Duke… friends they'd made along the way, people they'd lived with and trained with, yet hadn't even realized they'd miss. People who would inevitably have been either on the front lines, or caught in the crossfire.

Katara was less restrained; she was immediately at attention, her eyes shining with a mixture of anticipation and dread. "Who?" she demanded. "Who did you find?"

"A young woman from Kyoshi Island… and a warrior from the Southern Water Tribe. As far as we've learned, they were captured after taking down the Fire Nation airship fleet."

Even before he had finished, Katara had let out a gasp, tears spilling from her eyes and running unnoticed down her face. "They're alive," she whispered. "Thank Tui and La, they're alive."

Zuko, however, was frowning. "Was there anyone else captured with them?" he asked. "A blind earthbender, about twelve years old?"

"I'm sorry." Shen shook his head. "Those are the only two we know of so far."

The two of them exchanged an uneasy glance. "Maybe she escaped?" Katara suggested. "Toph wouldn't let herself get captured that easily."

"Without taking Sokka and Suki with her? Toph wouldn't leave her friends behind like that."

"We don't know the circumstances." Katara bit her lip. "Maybe they were separated. There might have been good reason."

"Yeah. Maybe." Even as he spoke the words, however, Zuko couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong—and he could see in her face that Katara had the same sense of foreboding.

"We have to focus on the people we have a chance of helping right now." Katara squeezed her eyes shut, but when she opened them a few seconds later they were perfectly dry. "Shen, did you find out where they're being held?"

"At the moment, they are being kept in the Caldera prison." Though he only paused for a few seconds, Shen's brief hesitation told them more than any of his words so far. "We think… that it is for the Phoenix King's convenience in having them interrogated."

Zuko's blood ran cold at those words; he knew all too well the cruelty of which his father was capable. "We have to get them out!"

Guan Yin nodded. "The Order of the White Lotus will help you in any way we can."

* * *

><p>Pressing their bodies as close against the outer wall as they could manage, they stared up at the Fire Nation prison. Though it was the dead of night and they were dressed head to foot in black, it was impossible not to feel exposed and vulnerable in this open space in the middle of the city under a nearly full moon. Turning back, however, was not an option.<p>

"I don't suppose you've managed to come up with a better plan."

"No."

The whispered conversation was one they'd already had multiple times, and which had come to the same conclusion every single time. Entering the prison undercover was out of the question: even if not for the fact that Zuko would be far too easily recognized, he'd already confirmed that this prison was run by a relatively small number of guards who all knew each other by name, and that, unlike at the Boiling Rock, they did not wear face-concealing helmets.

They had already thought of at least a dozen ways this plan could go wrong—and there were probably hundreds more that they _hadn't_ thought of. They could be killed. They could get Sokka and Suki killed. They could end up getting captured themselves, and only add more fuel to the Phoenix King's interrogation…

"This is our last chance, if you think we should back out."

"No."

Meeting each other's eyes, they exchanged a nod.

Katara's thumb slipped down to the mouth of her waterskin. In a deceptively simple movement, she flicked the cork out and the water followed, and then they were running forward in tandem, riding along on a wave of ice that brought them up and over the edge of the balcony.

Immediately the guards rushed them, yelling to sound the alarm. One was taken out in seconds by a wave of water that froze him to the wall; the other shot a blast of fire, which Zuko blocked before sending him crashing against the opposite wall with a retaliating fireball.

"This way!" Katara followed as he pounded through the door, taking them down the right fork and to the staircase that would lead them to the high-security cells. Even as they ran Katara was replenishing her arsenal, pulling water from the very air as she followed him. The next two guards to round the corner were frozen to the wall almost as quickly as they appeared.

Zuko knew the layout of this place, and he knew the guard shifts. They had used this knowledge to their advantage in planning their attack; a dark hour in the middle of the night, when the number of guards would be at a minimum and those who were on patrol would be getting sleepy and inattentive, proved to be ideal. The near-full moon had been a risk, but they had deemed it a worthwhile one, as it bolstered Katara's strength.

All the precautions in the world, however, couldn't eliminate the danger of what they were doing. Even if they had planned every move in advance, Zuko couldn't help but wonder whether his father would be expecting them to try something like this, and put his own countermeasures in place.

That thought alone was enough to give him a burst of energy, and as the next guard came rushing at them Zuko didn't even bother firebending, but instead grabbed the man by the front of his uniform and slammed him bodily into the wall.

"The Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom prisoners who took down the airship fleet," he growled. When the man didn't answer, Zuko shook him, lifting him off his feet in the process. "_Where are they?_"

When the guard hesitated, Katara moved to stand beside him, brandishing a stream of water that drew the man's nervous gaze as it wove back and forth through the air. "Well?" Zuko had only heard her use that cold voice on two people: Yon Rha, and himself. It was still enough to send chills up and down his spine.

"Th-the lower levels," the guard sputtered at last. "Cell Block 3."

As soon as they had the information they needed, Zuko let go, and only barely managed to avoid the wave of ice that pinned the guard to the wall.

"Are you going to have enough to last you?" he asked as they resumed their sprint, this time down the nearest flight of stairs. Though he had long since re-thought his ideas of fire being the naturally superior element, he could not help but admit the advantage that firebenders always carried their element within themselves rather than having to draw it from their environment—an advantage that Katara did not share.

"Oh, don't worry about me," Katara said grimly. With a gesture, more water condensed at her fingertips. It wasn't much—not nearly enough to replenish her supply—but he knew firsthand what a skilled waterbender could do with even the smallest amount of liquid. "I'm not going to be running out of water anytime soon." Reassured, he gave her a brief nod and sprinted ahead, taking the lead as they wove their way through the prison that he already knew far too well.

"Cell Block 3 is a high security area," he shouted back to Katara as they ran. "There'll be at least four guards on duty, and they work in pairs."

"So do we." Katara's mouth was set in a determined line, her water hovering at her side and ready to lash out at the slightest provocation. Though forced to carry her element outside of herself, she still had the advantage: it was the middle of the night, the full moon only three days away. Zuko was far from helpless, however; what he wasn't granted by the environment he made up for in pure determination, and he could feel his inner fire burning at his fingertips, itching to be released.

At the bottom of the stairs, they eased their heads cautiously around the doorway to check for potential ambushers. Caution was wasted at this point, however; the second they came into sight, a pair of guards came running straight at them. Immediately they were back-to-back, months of training together paying off as they lashed out with fire and water, neither leaving any opening for the other to be attacked.

Within seconds, it was over. Both guards lay unconscious on the floor. They waited, Zuko's fist drawn back, Katara's water hovering in front of her in a long stream, but the second attack they were expecting did not come.

Zuko's gaze flicked over to Katara, and he could see his own unease mirrored in her blue eyes. "There should be another pair."

They continued to hold each other's eyes for a moment more, asking silent questions, but then exchanged a slight nod. They'd come too far to back out now. Slowly, in a cautious advance quite unlike their previous battle rush, they moved down the hallway, standing shoulder to shoulder, elements still held at the ready in preparation for any attack.

At the sound of footsteps coming toward them, both tensed, Zuko's fire flaring up in his hand. "Wait!" Still they remained in their fighting stances, eyes locked on the guard who came toward them out of the shadows, hands raised. "Please, I'm unarmed." She spread her palms and raised her hands slightly higher, as if to emphasize the point. "I want to help."

Zuko and Katara exchanged a wary glance. By unspoken agreement, they did not attack her, but neither did they lower their guard. "How do we know we can trust you?" Katara said at last. "For all we know you could be trying to lead us into some sort of trap."

"I'm afraid I can only give you my word—but I beg you, let me help." She turned to Zuko then, giving as much of a bow as she could manage with her hands in the air. "Please, my prince. This may be the only chance you have to get your friends out alive."

Zuko's hands dropped involuntarily, and he knew that the shock was showing on his face. No one had addressed him as "prince"—at least, not without some degree of irony—since he had walked out on his father on the Day of Black Sun. Of course, there was always the possibility that the guard was simply a good actor—but Zuko found himself believing what she said. Standing up straight, he gave her a brief nod.

"Are you sure about this?" Unlike him, Katara had not dropped her guard, nor had she taken her eyes from the woman before them. "We'd be trusting Sokka and Suki's lives to a complete stranger on nothing more than her word."

"I don't think that we have much of a choice. Maybe she is leading us into a trap—but I think she's sincere. _Please_, Katara," he added as he saw her conviction waver. "I think that we have to take this chance."

"Fine." Katara lowered her hands, her water retreating back into her pouch, and turned to the guard once more. "But if my brother gets hurt because of you, I promise I'll make you regret it."

"I understand. Now follow me." Turning with a gesture for them to follow, she started leading them down the hallway at a swift jog.

In spite of his earlier reassurances to Katara, however, Zuko had some questions of his own. "Who are you?" he asked the guard as she unlocked the heavy door that would take them into the next row of cells. "Why are you doing this?"

"My name is Ming." Once she had pulled the door open Zuko went through first, holding a flame aloft in his palm; Katara followed at his nod that the way was clear. "As for why I'm helping you… well, that's a bit more complicated." The door clanged shut behind them, leaving them with only Zuko's fire for light until Ming pulled out a small glowstone that she also held aloft. "General Iroh once showed me great kindness by warning me not to be here on the day he planned to escape. I think that he would want me to help you as well."

At the mention of the name, Zuko's heart seemed to skip a beat. "You knew my uncle?"

"Know him? Well, I suppose that I did know him, in a sense." She smiled. "It's rare to find a man who has such an appreciation for tea." Zuko couldn't help but let out a slight smile of his own; if ever he'd had any doubt as to her claim, it was now gone. "I am… truly sorry for your loss."

"I'm sorry too." It was all he could think to say.

"So what was the other reason?" Katara asked for him as she came up from behind, mercifully turning the conversation to another topic.

Ming stopped abruptly before a heavy cell door. For a few seconds, she simply stood there; she seemed to be thinking hard about her answer. When at last she did speak, her voice was quiet. "Ever since I was a little girl, I was taught to love and support my country. That this war was the Fire Nation's way of sharing our greatness with the world, and that the other nations only resisted because they were too primitive to appreciate a good thing when it was handed to them. That we were forcing our greatness on them for their own good."

_What an amazing lie that was._ Zuko swallowed as he recalled his own epiphany, arrived at only after many years of traveling the world, the pain of the Earth Kingdom citizens and the devastation of the Air Temples laid out bare for all to see. "So what made you realize…?"

"If we were really trying to help people," she said softly, her head hanging low on her neck, "we never would have treated them with such cruelty." She pushed open the door.

The cell that was revealed was one that he immediately identified as the type used to contain dangerous firebenders: twin sets of manacles hung from the walls, prohibitively heavy and set in such a way that the prisoners' hands could never move more than a few inches away from their own bodies, the palms pointed inward, so that they could not bend without burning themselves. It wasn't the chains that caught his attention, however, but the people they held, both of whom were slumped against their restraints but looked up as the door opened, cringing as the light hit their faces.

"SOKKA!" Immediately Katara pushed past both of them and was at her brother's side, holding a hand to the side of his face. "Sokka, are you hurt? What did they do to you?" Already she had her water out and was scanning his body, checking him from head to foot for hidden injuries.

"K-Katara?" He raised his head, shaking it slightly as if to clear it as Ming unlocked his shackles. A groan escaped him. "No, I have to be dreaming again…"

Meanwhile, Zuko had moved over to Suki's side of the cell and knelt in front of her. "Are you okay?"

Even as he said it, he cringed: once again, he had spoken without thinking. Though Suki didn't look like she'd been badly hurt, she was filthy and pale, and unless the light was playing tricks on him she had definitely lost weight since the last time he'd seen her—not to mention that the position she was in could not have been comfortable.

"Oh, I'm fine," she confessed rather sarcastically as Ming freed her as well. She rubbed her wrists as the shackles fell away, and Zuko could see that the skin there had been chafed raw. "I've just been enjoying my nice vacation in this luxury prison cell."

"Sorry. It was a stupid question." He tried to think of something better to ask. "Are you hurt?"

"Not badly." Suki pushed herself to her feet somewhat stiffly, but did not sway or lean against the wall. "I can still fight."

He nodded. "Good." He was about to tell her their escape plan when Katara spoke from behind him.

"Zuko, we have a problem."

Turning back to the other side of the cell, he saw to his dismay that Katara had to help Sokka to his feet; he was avoiding putting any weight on his left leg, and even the simple action of standing had left him gasping in pain, his eyes squeezed shut as if to block out the agony. It was clear that Sokka would not even be able to walk without help—much less run, as they had counted on being able to do when they'd made their plans to get the others out of this place.

"Sokka broke his leg while we were taking down the airship fleet," Suki explained grimly, before he could ask Ming. "Nobody bothered to treat it when we were brought in."

This necessitated a change in plans. Katara turned to Ming, her brother's arm still across her shoulders. "Is there any way we can get to a balcony or high window without having to fight past any of the guards?"

"I've already thought of that. Come with me."

Zuko moved to support Sokka's other side as Ming led them from the cell and through another locked door at the end of the hallway, which opened onto a small lift. It was obviously made to transport one or two people at a time, and even though they all miraculously managed to cram themselves inside, the mechanism groaned and creaked ominously under the strain of their combined weight.

It was a tense few minutes of waiting while Ming pulled on the rope to bring them up, her arms trembling with the exertion. Zuko wanted to offer his aid—less out of concern than because he wanted to speed the process up—but Sokka's arm around his shoulders and the crush of bodies pinning him against the wall prevented him.

When she had pulled the lift as high as it would go, Ming did not open the doors right away, but instead stood still and simply listened. Shouts and running footsteps reached them through the doors—Zuko tensed—but the other guards passed them by without stopping to check their hiding place. Ming waited a few minutes after their footsteps had faded before cautiously cracking the door open to peer outside.

Having affirmed that the coast was clear, she pulled the door open the rest of the way, and they all piled out, following her down yet another hallway as fast as they were able. Sokka was now clenching his teeth in pain and beads of sweat stood out against his forehead, which was far too pale under his tan. He leaned more heavily on Zuko the longer they walked.

"Ming, how much farther?" Katara asked. Judging by the strain in her voice, she was also supporting a substantial amount of her brother's weight.

"We're almost there." They continued to press forward, and even though they were probably only walking for a few minutes, it felt like much longer. Finally, Ming pulled open a door.

Cool night air washed over their faces, and everyone took a relieved breath at their first taste of freedom since they'd entered the stuffy prison. As they stepped out onto the balcony, Katara took out the bison whistle, bringing it to her lips and blowing hard before turning back to Ming.

"Thank you," she said from her position beneath Sokka's arm. "Thank you so much."

Ming nodded. "Now, I need you to take me out."

Katara's eyes widened briefly, but then she gave a determined nod. "You need a believable cover story." She shifted some of Sokka's weight onto Zuko, her hand moving downward to the mouth of her waterskin.

"Wait." Katara's hand froze in place, and everyone else turned to look at Zuko, who was using his free hand to dig clumsily into one of his pockets. Finally, he found what he was looking for and held it out to her: a White Lotus Pai Sho tile.

At the sight of the token, her eyes widened; she obviously knew what it meant. She did not, however, reach out to take it. "I don't think it would be wise for me to be seen with something like that." She smiled back at him. "But I'll be sure to buy my own set after this is over."

It was a puzzling answer, but Appa was flying up to the edge of the balcony, and shouts from the other guards were rising up below them: there was no time to ask what she meant. Instead, Zuko pocketed the tile, taking back his share of Sokka's weight in the process. "If anyone ever asks you for a game, say yes." Telling her was a risk, but there was no such thing as a safe course—not anymore. "Those who cling to the old ways will always find a friend."

"I'll be sure to remember that." She turned to Katara. "Do it."

Katara needed no further prompting. A wave of water shot out from her hands; Ming could not quite suppress a cry of surprise as her body was encased in ice and pinned to the wall. Looking back at her, Zuko gave her one last nod before helping Sokka onto Appa's back. Suki leaped aboard next, breathing hard from the exertion.

Wait a minute… _Suki_ was _out of breath?_

This was the girl he'd once watched scramble up the side of a building and take out several guards in a row to get to the warden of the Boiling Rock, all without breaking a sweat. Zuko liked to think that he was in pretty good shape, but he'd barely been able to catch up with her—and _he'd_ definitely been out of breath when he had. For Suki to be panting from a brief walk and a hop onto Appa's back… something about that wasn't right at all.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly as Katara took the reins.

"I'm _fine_." At her defensiveness he backed off, hands outspread. Seeming to realize she'd snapped at him, Suki shook her head slightly by way of apology. "I'm fine," she repeated, though much less aggressively than before. "We should see what we can do for Sokka."

Sokka did seem to be the more badly hurt of the two; as soon as they'd gotten him onto the saddle he'd collapsed in place, trying to suppress his moans as he clutched his broken leg. Zuko had stayed by his side along with Suki, but was at a loss for what to do; Katara was the healer here, and she was currently at the reins. Zuko got up and moved to the front of the saddle.

"Is there anything else we can do to help Sokka?" he asked. "He's trying to hide it, but he's in a lot of pain."

"There's not much I can do until we get back on solid ground." Katara bit her lip. "I'm going to need more to work with than just the water." Nevertheless, she tossed him the reins before making her way to the back of the saddle and kneeling at Sokka's side, skimming water from the clouds as she went.

They flew the rest of the way to the safe house in silence. Zuko made sure to keep them above the clouds, navigating by starlight and only occasionally dipping down lower to make finer adjustments to their course. The waxing moon cast its pale, pure light over a colorless cloudscape, lending their environment an otherworldly quality that prohibited speaking and gave Zuko the feeling that they'd come to a place that humans were never meant to frequent. Briefly, he wondered if this was what it was like in the Spirit World.

The air up here was chilly, and the dampness from the clouds definitely didn't help. Before long the persistent wetness had permeated every layer of clothing he had on, and more than once Zuko found himself using his firebending to warm himself back up. Looking back, he saw that Katara had wrapped several layers' worth of blankets around Sokka, who was shivering violently even though his sister seemed completely unaffected. Suki was clutching a blanket around her shoulders as well.

Finally, after what seemed like a much longer time than their journey to the prison had taken, they made it back to Guan Yin's house. As Zuko brought Appa down to land, both Guan Yin and Shen came out to meet them.

"Were you followed?"

"Not that I know of." Zuko jumped down from the saddle, followed in short order by Suki, while Shen walked up Appa's tail to assist Katara in moving Sokka. "I did my best to keep us above the clouds on the way back."

Meanwhile, Katara was voicing her own concerns. "I'm going to need whatever medical supplies you can get," she called down from Appa's back as she and Shen each took up one of Sokka's arms and pulled him into a standing position. "Sokka's got a broken leg, and I'm going to need to set and splint it…"

Zuko, however, found that his attention was drawn back to Suki. She was supporting herself with a hand on Appa's side, and was still gasping for breath in spite of the fact that she'd spent at least half an hour sitting still. Looking more closely, Zuko saw to his alarm that beads of sweat were standing out on her forehead in spite of the cool night air. "Are you sure you're all right?" he asked in an undertone.

Suki looked at him then, and for the first time that night Zuko saw a spark of genuine fear in her eyes. "I don't… feel well," she confessed in a whisper.

She had barely completed the sentence before her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell forward unconscious.

* * *

><p>Katara could only watch, as if in slow motion, as Suki went limp as a rag doll and collapsed in a dead faint.<p>

"Suki?" In spite of his condition, Sokka was desperately trying to get to her. "SUKI!"

Zuko, meanwhile, was staring down in a panic at the unconscious girl in his arms. At least he had caught her in time to save her from cracking her head open against the ground, but unless they managed to find out what was wrong with her, and soon, that was hardly going to matter.

_No_, she thought in a moment of hopeless panic. No, this was _not_ happening. They'd only just managed to get two of their friends back after they thought they'd lost _everyone_, and Katara was not about to let another person slip through their fingers—not if she had anything to say about it.

With that thought, her feeling of helplessness evaporated even if the panic did not. In that moment, Katara knew what she would have to do, and she did it: she took charge.

"Sokka, stay _still!_" She slipped out from under Sokka's arm, trusting Shen to support him on his own. "Shen, get him to a bed and make sure he doesn't try to move around. Zuko, I need you to get Suki inside—_carefully_. Guan Yin, I need a room, clean water, and medicine, _now_."

As Katara shouted out orders, everyone jumped to do as she said. Zuko first lowered Suki to the ground, where he carefully repositioned her unconscious body so he could carry her without hurting her further, before standing again with her held close against his chest so the jostling would be kept to a minimum. Once he was ready, Guan Yin led them to an empty room in the house, where she hastily laid out a pallet on the floor before leaving to get the other supplies Katara needed.

Without prompting, Zuko laid Suki down on top of the bedding. Katara had no water on her person—she had nearly emptied her waterskin during the battle in the prison, and used up the rest trying to make Sokka more comfortable on the way back—so she started by pulling up Suki's shirt to see if she could find any visual clues as to what was wrong with her.

As it turned out, she didn't need to look far. Katara hissed in sympathy when she saw the ugly bruises on Suki's abdomen, some of them an angry reddish color, others dark blue or yellow and probably several days old.

Zuko's eyes also widened at the sight of her injuries. "She said she was fine!" Panic crept into his voice at the words. "She told me she wasn't hurt badly!"

"She probably thought that she wasn't. Internal injuries don't always hurt." At that moment, Guan Yin chose to re-enter the room, and Katara gratefully accepted the bowl of water she had brought, instructing her to place the other supplies within easy reach. Already she was bending the water around her hands, placing them gently against Suki's skin to begin a more thorough assessment of the damage.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Zuko's voice was unusually quiet.

"Yes," she said without looking away from her work. "You can go and get Sokka to calm down so he doesn't hurt himself more—I _know_ he's working himself into a panic right now—and while you're at it make sure _he_ isn't hiding any life-threatening injuries as well." When he didn't move, instead giving her a look of questioning disbelief, Katara knew that it was because he didn't feel right leaving a friend without knowing for sure whether she was going to be okay, but she could not afford to be patient right now. "Well?" she snapped, pinning him with a glare. "I need space and she needs privacy. You'll only get in the way here, and I don't think Suki would appreciate you standing here staring if I have to start taking off the rest of her clothes." Thankfully, the words got her message across, and Zuko hastily got up and left the room.

Now, Katara could give her full concentration to the task before her. Suki was bleeding internally, and it looked as if it had been going on for at least half a day. She must have taken a hard blow to the stomach at some point over the course of her imprisonment—probably more than one, Katara thought with mounting anger. If Katara didn't manage to heal her, and soon, then she would—

No. Katara was not even going to let herself _think_ it.

Time crawled by as she fought to repair the damage, encouraging ruptured tissue to knit back together, gently redirecting blood flow to ensure that all of the vital organs were getting what they needed. In spite of her rapid breathing, Suki seemed desperate for air, and Katara was helpless to get more into her lungs than her unconscious gasps were already taking in. Instead, she did the only thing she could and continued to work, single-mindedly, without breaks, to stop the blood loss that was at the root of the problem and to heal the tissues that had been damaged from lack of air.

The first rays of dawn had begun to filter in through the window by the time that Katara felt Suki's life was sufficiently out of danger for her to take a break. Groggily, she pushed herself to her feet, rubbing her eyes—it felt like grains of sand had lodged under her lids at some point over the course of the night—and was surprised to find herself swaying. She was alone in the room—Guan Yin had been in and out to bring her supplies, but the older woman must have needed her rest, and if Zuko knew what was good for him he hadn't left his post at Sokka's side.

The yawn that started as she pushed open the door didn't stop until she was halfway down the hallway. When she opened the door to the room where Guan Yin had told her they would put Sokka, she saw that her brother was laid out on top of some bedding that was similar to what Guan Yin had prepared for Suki, and that he seemed to have given into exhaustion and fallen asleep, though his face was still set in a grimace of pain. Zuko was there as well, sitting in a chair on the far side of the room, head leaning back against the wall and a series of light snores emanating from his open mouth.

"I thought it would be best if your friend got some rest." She started; she hadn't noticed Shen, who was sitting on the floor nearby. He gave her an apologetic smile as he rose to his feet. "I offered to watch over your brother so that he could sleep."

"He looks like he needs it." Katara smiled fondly, reminding herself to keep that picture in her mind; it was rare to see her one-time nemesis, the uptight (former) crown prince of the Fire Nation, in a position so unselfconscious, so relaxed, so… human.

Seeing Zuko like that, however, also served to remind Katara of how tired she was, that the high-intensity healing she'd been doing on top of staying up all night had exhausted her completely. Again, she turned to Shen. "Have you been up long?"

"About half the night."

"Then you should get some rest too." Stepping over to Zuko, she lightly touched his shoulder.

He awoke with a start, nearly toppling out of the chair before catching himself, blinking a few times before he got a bearing on his surroundings. "Katara?" He ran a hand over his face. Then, his good eye widened. "How's Suki? Did you find out what was wrong with her? Is she going to be okay?"

The hand that Katara held up to silence him quickly came to her mouth to cover another yawn. "I think that Suki is going to be fine," she said as soon as the yawn ended. "Sokka?"

"His leg is the worst of his injuries, but he was panicking the whole time he was awake. It was all we could do to keep him from jumping up and running off to find you."

She nodded, yet another yawn escaping her; she could not muster up the energy to ask how they had finally gotten Sokka to settle down. "I think that Sokka and I could both use some rest before I get to work on his leg," she confessed. "But someone needs to stay with Suki to make sure she doesn't develop any complications, and in case she wakes up, it would probably be better if it's someone she knows."

Thankfully, Zuko took her meaning immediately and stood up with a stretch. While Shen left the room to bring her some bedding, Katara gave Zuko a list of things to watch out for, and which would necessitate waking her right away. Zuko, though he looked slightly panicked by the onslaught of information, nodded through everything she said and even managed to repeat it back to her without a single mistake. Confident that he knew what to do, Katara gratefully curled up on the finished pallet, and was vaguely aware of mumbling thanks to Shen and some additional instructions to Zuko before she was fast asleep.

* * *

><p>Zuko shifted slightly from his seated position as Suki began to stir, though he didn't immediately move—this had happened a few times already, her eyelids fluttering and her fingers twitching, only for her to fall right back asleep after a moment of apparent restlessness.<p>

This time, however, it seemed like she was finally waking up for real. Zuko pushed himself into a kneeling position as her eyes flickered open.

"Hey," he said as Suki blinked up at him, seeming dazed from her injuries and prolonged unconsciousness. "How do you feel?"

"Like I've been trampled by a herd of angry Komodo rhinos." With a groan, she braced her arms underneath her body and pulled her knees forward as if preparing to push herself to her feet, but Zuko stopped her with a gesture.

"Don't try to get up. You were hurt pretty badly, and Katara said she'd freeze me to the ceiling if I let you move around."

"You're the one getting frozen to the ceiling here, not me. Don't see how that's my problem." Nevertheless, she lay back down, and Zuko gaped at her for a moment before he realized that she was smiling.

"Funny." Remembering the other instructions Katara given him in case Suki woke up before she did, he reached for the medicinal herbs at his side.

"How bad was it?" she asked, much more seriously, as Zuko added water before holding the cup between his hands to heat it. "I was only feeling a little faint, but then…"

Zuko hesitated. Sensing his reluctance, Suki narrowed her eyes at him, and he set the cup aside to cool with a sigh.

"Katara said you had internal injuries," he told her at last. "You almost bled to death before we even realized what was going on."

"I see." She looked away then, turning to face the wall rather than him. "Sokka?"

Though Zuko was sure he hadn't imagined the note of guilt in her voice, he decided not to bring it up, as they had more than enough to deal with already. "His leg's pretty badly broken, but that's the worst of it. He was getting frantic after you collapsed, though." When Suki did not answer, he continued, "Eventually he got so worked up that Guan Yin—our host—had to give him something to calm him down. He's sleeping right now. Katara says she'll work on his leg as soon as she's rested."

A brief movement of Suki's head was the only indication that she'd heard. Her non-responsiveness had Zuko at a loss—he didn't know what to say or not say, didn't even know what she'd been though over the week that they'd been hiding and he'd been healing and they'd both been desperately seeking information on what had happened to the others. As a matter of fact, Zuko was the worst person to be at her side under these circumstances—Katara, at least, would have known what to say. Uncle would too—the thought brought a burning heat to bear in his eyes and the back of his throat. Even Sokka, who said the most ridiculous things and always put his foot in his mouth, was not only her boyfriend, but knew what she'd been through and would be able to give her the kind of comfort that Zuko could not.

"Here," he said at last, picking up the cup, which should have finished steeping by this point. "You're supposed to drink this as soon as you wake up."

"All right." Her voice was dull. Again, she placed her hands against the floor, albeit more slowly this time. Zuko, thinking to help her sit up, eased a hand beneath her back. As soon as his palm pressed into the cloth of her shirt, however, Suki hissed in pain, jerking instinctively away from his touch.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" He immediately pulled away.

"It's okay." Even so, she was speaking through clenched teeth. "It's just a burn. I'll be fine."

"You need to tell Katara. Burns can get infected easily…"

"You think I don't _know_ that?" Zuko crossed his arms. She looked at his face, flushed, and turned away again. "Sorry. I was going to have Katara look at it once she'd finished with Sokka, but then…"

"Right." Letting out a sigh, he pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead. "Where aren't you burned?" he asked at last.

In the end, he propped her up with a hand between her shoulder blades, continuing to support her as she drank the medicine. Suki made a face at the taste but didn't complain even if she did pause a few times, and kept drinking until she had emptied the cup of its contents.

"Ugh." She wiped her mouth as she set the cup to the side. Wordlessly, Zuko passed her some water; she rinsed out her mouth a few times before drowning the rest in one long swallow.

No sooner had she finished than the door opened, revealing a very tousle-headed Katara. She was rubbing her eyes with her fist, her mouth open in a yawn, but she brightened immediately upon seeing that Suki was awake.

"How are you feeling?" In a few swift strides she was at Suki's side, hands coated with water, and Zuko stood back to give her room. "Any pain? Dizziness? Nausea? Did Zuko give you the medicine I left?"

"Yeah, he did," Suki said, answering the last question first. "I feel… tired, and I get dizzy if I try to sit up too quickly."

"All right. Let me take a look." She eased Suki back down (incidentally managing not to touch any sensitive spots), before once again holding glowing water to her abdomen, moving slowly over various points on her body.

Finally she sighed, bending the water back into the bowl. "I'll do more later, but right now I have to take care of Sokka's leg." Suki nodded her understanding as Katara pushed herself to her feet. "Don't try to get up or move around. I'll send in Guan Yin to see whether you need anything." With one final stretch, she pushed herself to her feet. "Zuko, come with me."

"So what's up?" he asked as Katara closed the door behind them.

"I need your help." She worried her lip a little before continuing. "Sokka's leg had started to heal on its own, but nobody bothered to set it after he was captured, and it… healed wrong. I'm going to have to break it again, and set it right this time, or he's going to walk with a limp for the rest of his life."

Zuko winced. "So you want me to—"

His question was cut short, however, when Katara pushed open the door to Sokka's room. Sokka, now awake and alert, looked up in anticipation as they entered—as did Guan Yin, who was sitting beside him.

"How's Suki?" The words were out of his mouth before they had even stepped through the door.

"Awake, and lucid. She'll need to avoid any strenuous activity for a while, but as long as she doesn't try to push herself too hard, she ought to be fine."

"She was worried about you," Zuko added as Sokka let out a sigh of relief.

"I told Suki I'd send someone in in case there was anything she needed." Katara turned to Guan Yin. "Could you—"

"Of course." Their host stood and exited the room, closing the door behind her.

"Okay." Taking a deep breath, Katara sank down onto the floor next to her brother. "Sokka, you know how this works. I'm going to have to hurt you for your leg to heal right. I'm sorry, but…"

He cut her off with a shake of his head. "Katara, it's okay. Besides, you're going to heal me as soon as you're done, right? I think I can take it."

The words seemed to steel Katara's resolve, and she nodded. "Okay. Here's how we're going to do this." She produced a leather strap from the bag at her side and held it out to her brother. "Sokka, bite down on this." With a nod, he accepted the offering, though Zuko could hear his nervous swallow. "Zuko? Hold him down."

With a nod, he knelt at Sokka's head, placing his hands lightly against the other boy's shoulders. Unable to think of anything else to say, he could only repeat the words his uncle had whispered to him as the ship's doctor had changed his bandages the first few weeks of their voyage. He'd been in excruciating pain; as the soiled gauze was peeled from his face, it had felt as if his skin were being ripped off with it—but Uncle had always been there as well, repeating the same mantra over and over again while he bit back his screams, and it had helped him far more than he'd been willing to admit. "Look at me, Sokka. Don't watch what she's doing. Just look at me."

In answer, Sokka snorted. "What makes you think that I'm going to want to see _your_ face when I'm in severe pain?" Nevertheless, he kept his eyes on Zuko as he placed the strap between his teeth. Zuko rolled his eyes but said nothing as he tightened his grip until he was sure that Sokka could not move; he knew that the friendly teasing was only Sokka's way of coping and that his own responses had been a great deal harsher.

From somewhere near the vicinity of Sokka's feet, he heard Katara take a deep breath, but followed his own advice and did not look to see what she was doing. Instead, he held Sokka's gaze, keeping their eyes locked as Sokka's hands came up to encircle his forearms.

Then, Katara made her move.

The dull snapping sound of breaking bone was nearly drowned out by Sokka's muffled scream, and his hands clenched on Zuko's forearms hard enough to bruise. Even as Sokka's eyes screwed shut and his breathing grew harsh with pain, however, Katara had set the bone and was bending a stream of water to hold against his leg, healing the worst of the damage. Slowly, Sokka's breathing evened out and his grip on Zuko's arms loosened, which Zuko took as his cue to ease his own hold. Sokka spat out the leather strap as he opened his eyes.

"That…" He swallowed, running his thumb over the set of teeth marks that had been newly imprinted into the leather. "I _never_ want to do that again."

"Hopefully you won't have to." Katara pulled the water away before she went to work splinting the leg, wrapping long strips of bandages to hold the wood in place. "It'll take a few more healing sessions before you're good to walk again, but as long as you stay off it until then, there should be no lasting aftereffects."

"Right," Sokka groaned. "Go right back to not moving again. Great."

Katara only smiled indulgently at his complaints. "I'll see what I can do about getting you some crutches." After taking a moment to stretch, she stood and made her way to the door; seeing his opportunity, Zuko followed.

"I'll talk to Guan Yin about crutches," he said in an undertone once they were out of earshot. "You should take another look at Suki first."

* * *

><p>The burns were of varying degrees of size, age, and severity. Some were almost-healed, peeling patches of skin that needed no attention from her; others, however, were oozing swathes of blisters that looked to be no more than a day old—or, even worse, were several days old, and had grown swollen and yellow with infection.<p>

More than the sheer number of burns, however, what disturbed Katara the most was the fact that many—far too many to be a coincidence—bore the unmistakable shape of handprints, and that the great majority of them were clustered in some of the most sensitive areas of the skin. Whoever was responsible for this had done it with the intention of causing pain.

"Suki," she said at last, no longer able to stand the prolonged silence as she moved the water from burn to burn. "What happened?"

At first, she thought the other girl wasn't going to answer; she held her silence as Katara worked on a spot on her side that, though not particularly severe, was still giving her trouble due to the large area of skin that it covered. When Suki finally did speak, her voice was so quiet that Katara could barely hear it. "They were trying to get Sokka to talk."

Katara's response was equally quiet. "I see." After that, there wasn't anything more to say. Her stomach churned, and she didn't—_couldn't_—ask the obvious question, because she wasn't sure which answer would make her feel worse.

After a few minutes, however, Suki answered it anyway. "I told him not to. The world was more important than me." A hiss of pain escaped her as Katara placed her hands against a burn that started near the intersection of her shoulder and armpit and extended almost a third of the way down her back and side. This one was both larger and more severe than most of the others, the skin deep red and covered in ruptured blisters; this was probably the burn that Zuko had agitated when he'd tried to help her sit up.

"He didn't talk, at first," she continued as Katara began her healing, and it was evident from the flatness in her voice that Suki's feelings were as mixed as hers. "But then, they threatened to—"

At that point, however, her voice broke and she couldn't seem to continue, or to tell Katara exactly what it was that she would have suffered had Sokka not passed vital information into the hands of the Fire Nation, and Katara felt a surge of anger that anyone would use such an underhanded method of threatening a person's loved ones in order to get what they wanted.

"It's okay, Suki," she said at last, glad that Suki's back was turned to her, glad that they didn't have to look at each other during such a painful conversation. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." She bit her lip. "But we do need to know what they know."

"That's something you're going to ask Sokka. They always took him to a different room when…"

…when they'd interrogated him. Katara grimaced. Belatedly, she realized that she'd been working on the same injury for nearly five minutes, and reluctantly pulled away the water. "I don't think I'm going to be able to heal this one in one session," she admitted. If she'd been able to work on it even a day sooner, she thought with frustration, she probably would have been able to do a more thorough job, but at least she had managed to mend most of the ruptured blisters, which would cut down considerably on both the pain and the risk of infection. "For now I'll clean it and apply a dressing, and work on it again tonight."

Suki nodded, though a shudder went through her body at even Katara's gentle ministrations. Knowing how painful it must be for Suki to be touched by anyone right now, she cleaned the burn as quickly as she could without being rough, and used the lightest touch she could manage in applying the salve.

"Okay," Katara said at last as she finished bandaging up the wound. "You might have some scarring, but other than that it should heal fine."

"How bad?" she asked quietly as Katara moved on to the next burn.

"To be honest, I can't say for sure. But I've treated burns much worse than this, and I'm going to do everything I can to prevent it. At worst, the skin will be pink and a little rough." Suki nodded her acknowledgement.

Thankfully, most of the rest of the burns she managed to heal all the way. There was only one other that required additional attention, on the inside of Suki's upper arm—a location that would result in a great deal of chafing and pain for most normal movement. Katara had no doubt that that had been the intention.

No sooner had she finished bandaging up the final burn than a knock sounded on the door. "Hold on a minute!" As Suki pulled on a shirt, Katara got up and headed for the door—she wouldn't put it past Sokka to barge in anyway. Once she was sure Suki was decent, Katara pulled open the door.

Sokka had, indeed, been about to barge in. As it was, he stumbled forward when the door handle was pulled unexpectedly from his grasp, and only Katara's hasty intervention prevented him from pitching face-first into the floor. Somewhere, he seemed to have found a crude set of crutches, with which he was now supporting himself awkwardly, not quite having gotten the hang of using them yet.

"I did tell him to wait until you let him in." Zuko was standing against the wall behind him, arms crossed.

"I'm sure that you did," Katara grumbled, withdrawing her support and allowing Sokka to make his way over to his girlfriend.

"Suki?" His face was ashen as he staggered over as fast as his crutches could propel him. "I'm so, so sorry, Suki. I never meant for this to happen. I'm sorry. I—"

"Sokka, it's not your fault." She made a move as if to rise, caught Katara's warning look, sighed, and instead reached out to give a gentle tug to Sokka's hand. "I'm fine. Katara says I'll be fine."

Holding his crutches to one side, Sokka awkwardly lowered himself to the floor—but as soon as he was on her level, he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. Though he was mindful enough of Suki's injuries not to squeeze or jostle her, he did not move for several long moments, tears running down his face as he held her close.

The sound of the door closing behind her brought Katara's attention back to Zuko. After turning the latch, he stepped into the room with a small cough. "I hate to ruin the moment and all, but we've got some important things we need to talk about."

Slowly, reluctantly, without any hint of embarrassment at being caught with an audience, Sokka and Suki pulled away from each other—though their hands remained entwined. Sokka nodded. "I think that you're right. We need to plan what we're going to do next."

Zuko looked a question at Katara, who nodded, indicating that he should start. He returned the gesture with a nod of his own before returning his attention to Sokka. "First of all, what happened to Toph?"

"We don't know." For a few seconds of silence, they waited for Sokka to say more, but when he didn't seem inclined to continue, Suki picked up where he had left off.

"Toph was singled out as the only bender in the group and separated from us right after we were captured. They… must know she's a metalbender. They used wooden restraints."

"I see." Katara hung her head. "The White Lotus hasn't had any luck finding her either."

"Well, she has to be somewhere," Sokka insisted, "and their usual method of imprisoning earthbenders won't work on her." He rubbed his chin. "What if they're keeping her on a _wooden_ boat?"

"The Fire Nation doesn't use wooden boats," Zuko interrupted. "What do you think happens when a bunch of firebenders are out at sea on a vessel made of wood?"

"Zuko's right," Katara said. "If they've still got Toph, they're probably keeping her in a wooden prison cell somewhere, like that time we got captured by Combustion Man."

"Wherever they took her, it's already been a week, and the White Lotus hasn't had any luck either. Frankly, Toph could be anywhere by now."

"If the Order can't find her, we're going to have to track down someone who _does_ have that information, and get it out of them in other ways." Suki's eyes flashed. "We can start with that guard who helped us out—she should be able to give us some names at least. Zuko, do you know of any other good places to start?"

"I could give you a few places to start." She nodded in satisfaction. "Frankly, though, what happened to Toph is only one of our problems." He turned from Suki to Sokka. "We also need to know what information you shared while you were in prison."

Katara winced—Zuko needn't have put it so bluntly, especially with Sokka and Suki both sitting right there. At the question, Sokka's shoulders slumped as his eyes fell to the floor. Suki's fingers tightened around his.

"I wish I'd held out longer." A hand came up to press into the side of his head, and he turned away from Suki. "I should have talked sooner. If only I'd—"

"Sokka. Stop." Katara knelt at his other side, placing a hand on his shoulder; he looked at her then, tears standing out in his eyes. "There's nothing we can do to change what happened," she continued gently, "but if we want to have any chance at all of fixing the damage, we need to know."

"I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of," Zuko added, sinking to the floor across from the group. "Sometimes it was because I didn't know what was right. Sometimes there _was_ no right decision—but what's done is done, and sometimes you just have to accept the consequences and try to make right whatever you can."

At his words, Sokka nodded and took a deep breath. "I told them about the Order of the White Lotus."

"How much?" Zuko asked, worry working its way into his voice. "Did you share the passphrases?"

"I didn't know them—and believe me, they asked. They didn't believe me until they started—" He choked, as if the very words were an obstruction in his throat. Nobody prompted him to continue, but waited in silence as he took a series of deep breaths. "I named all the members I could, and told them about the Lotus tile I got from Master Piandao," he finished at last, his voice coming out in a whisper. "I was sharing everything I knew at that point, because of what they threatened to do to Suki if I didn't tell them."

That must have been why Ming hadn't accepted Zuko's offering: given the Fire Nation's newfound knowledge, it would have been incredibly dangerous to carry around a White Lotus tile for no apparent reason.

All the while, Suki was silent, wrapping her arms around herself like a small child. Though she did not try to pull away from Sokka, nor did she lean in to take comfort from his embrace.

Did she blame him for what had happened? Or had whatever her interrogators had done to her in prison been so traumatic that she had developed an aversion to human contact? Either way, Katara was going to have to talk to her brother, and soon: it seemed as if he had no idea how to interact with Suki now, especially in light of the fact that he clearly blamed himself for what had happened, and he needed to know how to avoid doing something that would only make things worse.

"We need to tell Guan Yin and Shen, so that they can get the word out." Zuko's voice broke into her thoughts. "Is there anything else?"

Sokka hung his head. "The Northern Water Tribe. Their defenses, the layout of their city—even random stuff about their culture. I was spilling everything by then."

"The Ocean and Moon spirits?" It was impossible to keep the horror from her voice. Zhao had been bad enough, but if the entire Fire Nation now knew the secret…

Sokka, however, shook his head. "That was the one thing I _didn't_ tell them." His voice carried a note of pride—it was hollow triumph, but there nonetheless. "Yue… I couldn't…"

It seemed as if the entire room breathed a sigh of relief. "So they don't know."

"No. But there's more." Eyes narrowed, he pushed himself into a more upright position. "They wanted to know about the swamp benders too, and whether there were any other waterbenders born in the South. And I told them. I _told_ them—!" Harsh breaths tore their way from his throat, and once again he stopped, not speaking again until he had fought his way back to a state of control. "The Fire Nation is going after the next Avatar—and we have to find him first."

"But there _isn't_ a next Avatar!"

"Katara…"

"Weren't you _listening_ to what Aang told us after we got away from Fong?"

"Katara—"

"If he dies in the Avatar state, the reincarnation cycle will be broken, and—"

"Katara, you're not listening to me—"

"—there's no way that blue light could have been anything else. We can't—"

"_Katara! Aang wasn't in the Avatar State!_"

Her tirade ground to a screeching halt as she and Zuko both turned to stare at the pair on the floor. For a moment, all was still.

"Sokka," Zuko said at last. "Are you sure?"

"I was right there. I saw the whole thing." A distant, glazed look came over his eyes. "Aang was in a pretty tight spot at first, but then he somehow managed to get into the Avatar State. It turned the whole fight completely around. I didn't see everything—I was too busy with the airships—but the next time I looked Aang had Ozai completely at his mercy. He was pinned to the ground and everything, and Aang was about to unleash the wrath of the elements on him."

"So what happened?" Even though she already knew the answer from somewhere deep within herself, Katara still had to ask. To hear Sokka confirm what her heart already knew to be true.

"He couldn't do it. At the last second he pulled back, came out of the Avatar State, and let Ozai go. I don't know what he was thinking. Maybe that Ozai would be grateful that the Avatar had shown him mercy, or that he was still too terrified to make a move. Maybe he hoped they could talk things out before Ozai recovered. But he lowered his guard. He turned his back. And then—" Sokka mimed a fire strike, letting his hand drop back to his side.

Katara's hands were over her mouth. Across from her, Zuko drove his fist into the floor with a loud thud. Smoke rose from the floorboards where his hand had impacted. When he pulled his hand away, his knuckles were bleeding.

Nobody spoke. Eventually, Katara knew, they would have to make plans, to figure out how they were going to use their meager resources to help a world that was so much worse off than it had ever been during their lifetimes. Right now, however, the horror of Aang's death was too great of a hurdle for her to get over. He had been unwilling to kill, he had shown mercy, and Ozai had repaid him by… by…

Ozai was a monster. Though Zuko had already said as much, on many occasions, only now, now that she knew personally what he was willing to do to an opponent, a _child_ who'd been vulnerable only because he'd refused to emulate Ozai's ruthlessness, was she fully able to process that knowledge.

"Aang," she whispered. Unbidden, tears were running down her face, but she made no effort to wipe them away. Katara could only sit there with a hand over her mouth, saltwater spilling from her eyes as her shoulders shook uncontrollably. A hand—Sokka's—was on her back, rubbing gentle circles, but he didn't speak either, head hanging low on his neck with his eyes squeezed shut.

They sat there for an indeterminate amount of time, all of them grieving in their own ways, taking comfort from each other's presence. When somebody finally did break the silence, it was as if she had forgotten the real world existed, but Suki's voice brought her crashing back down into it.

"So what are we going to do now?"

"It's like Sokka said." Zuko looked over at them, yellow eyes intense. "We have to find the next Avatar, and we have to do it before the Fire Nation.

"We might have time," he continued. "Most of the navy was destroyed in Zhao's siege, and the airship fleet…" Trailing off, he shot a questioning look at Sokka, who smirked.

"Trust me, Zuko. There wasn't much left of the airship fleet after we got done with it."

"That gives us some time, then. The Fire Nation won't be able to hold its own against the Northern Water Tribe without a massive invasion force, and it's going to take them at least half a year to rebuild everything." He shot a hesitant look at Katara and Sokka. "The Southern Water Tribe—"

"Isn't a threat," Katara reassured him in spite of the spike of worry that shot through her stomach. "Before I left, I was the only waterbender in the whole South Pole."

"The Fire Nation knows it too," Sokka continued, picking up where she'd left off. "There won't have been any children born for the past three years, not with all the men away at war. Without any benders or any resources, we don't have anything that could possibly interest the Fire Nation."

"So it's settled, then," Suki added. "The next Avatar is going to be born in the Northern Water Tribe."

"Actually… he might not be." Zuko and Suki both shot questioning looks at Sokka, but Katara knew instantly what he was talking about. "The Foggy Swamp," they said in unison.

"We found other waterbenders," Katara added for the others' benefit, "living in the middle of an Earth Kingdom swamp. Their tribe was well-hidden, but some of them helped us fight in the invasion, and they surrendered so we could get away." It was evident from the looks on the others' faces that she didn't need to say anything more: they knew as well as she did that that meant any information on the swamp benders was now potentially in the Fire Nation's hands as well.

"The Fire Nation is low on resources right now," Zuko reminded them. "That gives us time. But if I know anything about my—about Ozai, he's not going to wait any longer than he has to. We need to get there first."

"We're going to have to warn both of them." Sokka's arm tightened around Suki's shoulders as he spoke. "Find out which tribe has the Avatar. Prepare their defenses. Maybe even evacuate if necessary." He swallowed. "We're going to have to tell the Order, but in the end that might not be enough."

"So how—"

At that moment, however, their plans were interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream.

Without thinking, Katara was on her feet and out the door, hand over the mouth of her waterskin, Zuko hard on her heels. They didn't need to look far for the source of the commotion: at the other end of the hallway was Guan Yin, face pale, eyes wide with fright.

"Please—you have to help—"

"Where?" Katara demanded. With a shaking hand, Guan Yin pointed to the door directly behind her: the door to the room where they'd been keeping Azula.

A glance, a nod, and an unspoken plan was exchanged and agreed upon. Katara stood to the side of the doorway, back against the wall, while Zuko entered first.

Blue flames parted around him like water the second he stepped through the door, dispersing harmlessly into thin air at his reflexive block. Knowing that Zuko could now cover her effectively, Katara rushed into the room behind him, kneeling beside the still-screaming Shen while Zuko fought to restrain his sister.

Shen was covering his face with his hand. Katara had to pull his wrist away; he struggled against her instinctively, and in the end she had to kneel on top of his arm to keep him from touching the burn and making it worse. When she finally managed to get a good look, she saw that his face had been badly burned, the skin already beginning to blister.

Stomach turning, she bent the water from the pouch at her side and coated her hands, pressing the healing liquid to the blistered and reddened skin, knitting damaged tissue back together, clearing the chi paths so the healing would go easier. As Shen's breathing relaxed, Katara allowed herself a sigh of her own: though superficially ugly, the burns were no worse than Toph's feet had been, and that she had been able to give them immediate attention would aid the recovery process immensely. There shouldn't be lasting scars.

Chancing a glance to make sure that Zuko had Azula secured, Katara saw that he was watching her with an intense, unreadable expression. As soon as her eyes met his, however, he busied himself with securing his sister, re-binding her hands behind her back and tying them to the bedpost in such a way that she couldn't get loose again.

Thinking it best that Shen not stay in the same room with Azula any longer than necessary, Katara helped him to his feet to move him to another room where she could finish the rest of the healing.

* * *

><p>"Even tied up, Azula is too dangerous. We have to do something about her."<p>

"Like what?" Zuko rounded on Katara, who had managed to find him in spite of his best efforts—not that that would be excessively hard on such a small property, he realized with a scowl. He reached up to pet Appa's nose; the barn had seemed like the best place to avoid people while he thought—_brooded_, a small voice in his head insisted. "No matter what we do, she's still going to be able to firebend."

"That's the problem. We can't leave her with the White Lotus, not as she is. We can't drag her with us to the North Pole or the Foggy Swamp or wherever it is we end up going next. We have to do something about her bending."

"What?" Zuko demanded again. "_What_ do you think we should do? Crush her hands? Cut off her feet?" Without realizing it, he had leaped to his feet; he was breathing hard.

"I don't _know!_" Katara looked like she was about to cry. "I'm _not_ going to mutilate your sister, but we can't leave things as they are either." Taking a deep breath, she shook her head slowly before looking at him once more. "I was hoping you'd have some ideas."

"Sorry. I don't." All at once, the anger went out of him, leaving him feeling helpless and drained. "It's not… I mean, if we could take away her bending without hurting her otherwise, that would solve a lot of our problems. But we can't."

He flopped down once again against Appa's side, leaning back into the thick fur, eyes slipping shut. He waited, but nothing came. When several minutes passed without any sort of response, he opened his eyes again, to see that Katara had a faraway look on her face.

"What if… what if we _could?_"

"Take away someone's bending?" Zuko propped himself up on one elbow, intrigued, hopeful, terrified… "How do you think we could do that?"

"Not 'we'." She spoke so quietly that he had to strain his ears to make out what she was saying. "I."

"How…" Suddenly, his mouth was dry. "How exactly…"

"I'm a healer. I know how chi flows in the body, and I know how chi gets blocked up as well. When I worked on Aang after Azula… after Azula killed him, his chakra was blocked. He couldn't go into the Avatar State at all. I remember what that energy felt like. Also…"

"Also what?" When she looked away, biting her lip, he only pressed harder. "Also what, Katara? You can't take away someone's bending with healing techniques. If that was possible, the waterbenders would have been doing it already."

A few seconds passed before she was willing to speak; when she did, she would not meet his eyes. "Bloodbending." She spoke so quietly that he could barely hear her, wrapping her arms around herself as if for protection. "It's a technique that… well, you've seen it."

"You mean…" An image flashed into his mind: the captain of the Southern Raiders, body bent at unnatural angles, pinned to the floor of his ship under the light of the full moon, his face twisted in agony… "You're going to use _that?_" Zuko leaped to his feet.

"Do you have a better idea?" Her voice had risen to match his, and Katara forced herself to a stop, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, her words were delivered much more calmly. "I've had it done to me before. Sokka and Aang too, and at least a dozen Fire Nation citizens. I won't deny that it's painful, but… none of us suffered any lasting aftereffects. It's the only thing I can think of," she continued, pleading. "If I knew of anything else—anything at all—believe me, I'd be sharing it."

Zuko slumped back down again, allowing Appa's bulk to support him as his knees folded, his face in his hands. "What are you going to do?"

* * *

><p>"What are you doing to me?" Azula squirmed madly, twisting against her restraints, but the chains and her brother's hold both worked to keep her in a kneeling position. "You've been working with <em>her<em>, haven't you? _She_ put you up to this!"

Katara had no idea what Azula was talking about, and frankly, she didn't think that she wanted to know. So instead of pondering her words, she concentrated on allowing her healing abilities to show her Azula's chi paths, and the power of the full moon to show her every drop of blood in Azula's veins.

Above Azula's head, Zuko's eyes flicked down to his sister, before returning to Katara with an intense expression that she couldn't read. He still had mixed feelings about doing this—_Katara_ still wasn't sure that it was the right thing. When she had ventured the suggestion that he might not want to be here, however, his refusal had been so adamant that she hadn't asked again.

As if of their own accord, her hands were moving, following the chi paths that she could now feel with no effort at all. Had she had water available, it would have been glowing with the force of her healing powers—but Katara was not using water. Not tonight.

Her hands, guided by chi, came to rest gently against Azula's skin—one on the side of her head, the other over her heart.

Katara took a deep breath. She could _feel_ the blood—and the chi that it carried.

She took hold of it and _pulled_.

She had braced herself for screaming and thrashing. What happened instead was somehow much worse: Azula froze, mouth open, eyes wide as if staring into the face of some unspeakable horror. Every one of her muscles had locked up; Katara could feel it through her bloodbending, and she knew that Zuko could feel it even more directly.

"How much longer is this going to take?" he gritted out, even though with Azula no longer struggling, the effort required to hold her must have been minimal.

"I'm working… as fast as I can." In spite of what she had told him earlier, in spite of her knowledge and her surety in her own abilities, Katara could not help but worry that something would go horribly wrong. Rearranging the body's chi paths was no mean feat, and this was the first time to her knowledge that anyone had tried it for reasons other than healing.

_Please, Tui and La, don't let me fail now._ Grunting with the effort, she gave one last pull before pulling her hands away from Azula's body.

As she took a step back the princess tried to lunge after her, snarling with rage, only to be pulled up short by Zuko's grip on her arms. In between her incoherent screams she breathed in forceful, deliberate huffs, blowing air in Katara's direction, and it took her a few seconds to realize that Azula was trying to breathe fire—and failing.

It had worked. Azula was never going to firebend again.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Okay, I'll confess: I hate writing Azula. She's one of the most difficult characters I've ever encountered, so I'll admit to deliberately getting her out of the story as soon as possible. The prison break was also… definitely not one of my favorite things to write.

I _did_ enjoy writing the interaction between Zuko and Suki, mostly because they were two characters who canonically didn't get to interact much beyond "You kind of burned down my village," and Suki never even got a field trip. So it was nice to give them a friendship scene or two.

Before I sign off, I'd also like to remind everyone of the "guess the album" contest that I've got going for this story (see Chapter 1 notes for details).


	3. Hiding Hope

"We're going to go due north, and keep heading north until we hit ice. We should be able to find the Northern Water Tribe from there."

_Their plan had been simple: find the next Avatar. All they knew was that he (or she) would be born a waterbender, but as of right now, that narrowed it down to only two places where such a person could be._

"Here. Take this with you." With Shen's help, Katara was able to heft the sack up into the saddle. Zuko was securing the rest of their supplies and did not offer to help. "There should be enough food in there to last you a couple of weeks, and some other supplies as well—fishing gear, medicine, and some extra clothes. If you're going north, you're going to need them."

_"So here's the plan. Odds are the next Avatar has already been born—either in the Foggy Swamp—" Sokka tapped his finger against a point on the map in the middle of the Earth Kingdom, "—or in the Northern Water Tribe." The finger moved north. "The catch is that we don't know which. We're going to have to split up to cover as much ground as possible before the Fire Nation gets there."_

"Thank you, Shen, Guan Yin." Katara bowed to the small family, as best she could, in the style of the Fire Nation. "You don't know how much this means to us."

_"I have to go to the Northern Water Tribe," Zuko said at last. "If we don't want the waterbenders to lose their bending again, the Moon and Ocean spirits have to be protected—and they've got some holes in their defenses that they need to know about."_

There was one last thing that she had to do before leaving: sliding from the saddle, she wrapped her arms around her brother, who had come out to see them off even though he was still leaning on his crutches.

_Sokka exchanged an uneasy glance with her before turning back to Zuko. "You'll need someone to vouch for you," he said at last. "Everyone in the Northern Water Tribe knows your face by this point, and I don't think you're going to be very welcome up there after everything that's happened. If you go in alone, they'll tear you apart."_

"I'm really going to miss you, Sokka," she murmured. "The Fire Nation has already torn our family apart, and now—"

_"So who?" Zuko was, Katara noted, deliberate not looking at her—just as he had been doing ever since the night she had taken away Azula's bending._

"I know." He pulled away. "Katara, if we don't see each other again…"

_For a second, Sokka squeezed his eyes shut. "It has to be Katara," he said at last. "The Foggy Swamp is harder to find and easier to hide in, and the Northern Water Tribe has Yue and—has Tui and La. The Fire Nation is going to go after them first, so we have to get there first too, and I won't be able to travel until this leg heals."_

"Don't talk like that. Of course we'll see each other again." As she pulled away, she willed her words to be true. "We will."

_"I've healed as much as I can, but you still need to give it a few weeks. You and Suki need to take some time to heal, but you'll both be back on your feet again before you know it."_

A few weeks, however, was time that they could not afford to lose—not if they wanted to get to the Northern Water Tribe ahead of the Fire Nation navy.

"Everything's ready." Zuko jumped down from the saddle, landing lightly on the ground behind her. "We can leave at any time."

"Good." Even as she stepped away from Sokka, her brother reached forward to clasp hands with Zuko.

"Take care of my sister." Sokka's eyes were intense.

"Your sister is pretty good at looking out for herself—but don't worry. I will."

Meanwhile, Katara was saying her farewells to Suki, to whom she had given leave to get up and move around on the condition that she didn't overexert herself. "Take care of my brother," she whispered in the other girl's ear before they pulled apart. "Sometimes he's too smart for his own good."

"Don't worry," Suki returned with a slight smile. "I'll be sure to keep him in line."

Their farewells to the others said, Suki and Zuko turned to each other.

"Thanks again for helping me break out, and for sitting with me after."

"Um…"

Before Zuko could figure out he had no idea what to say, Suki moved forward, clasping his forearm with one hand and briefly gripping his shoulder with the other. "I hope we meet again," she said as they pulled apart. "I want to get to know you as more than the jerk who burned down my village."

"You're a great warrior, Suki," he returned with a bow. "I hope that I can learn from you someday."

Their farewells spoken, Katara climbed up into Appa's saddle, Zuko not far behind. Her hands tightened around the reins as she looked down at her family, and in spite of her words to Sokka she couldn't suppress the thought that this might be the last time she ever saw them again. With that in mind, she tried to fix their faces in her memory: Sokka, looking up at her, his face grown more haggard in a matter of weeks than it had over nine months of fighting a war; Suki by his side, her movements stripped of her normal martial artist's grace, looking unusually small and somehow _brittle_ as she swallowed back more than one kind of pain.

In her heart, Katara knew that they would have to leave, and leave _now_—the decision they had made was the only option they had, and the longer they waited, the harder it would be. Fighting the hot prickling sensation that welled up in her eyes, she flicked the reins.

"Yip yip."

* * *

><p>"Look, Zuko—"<p>

"I don't blame you, Katara."

The admission stunned her into silence—she had not expected Zuko to so readily acknowledge the topic they had both heretofore spent so much effort avoiding. They had been traveling together, alone, for over a week now, and hadn't spoken five words to each other the whole time. Though she'd tried to give him his space at first, enough was enough, and she'd decided that they needed to clear the air, and soon, before her frayed temper got the better of her. So it was that she'd determined to broach the subject, tonight, before they pitched camp or made dinner or did anything else that could become a distraction, an excuse not to converse.

"You did what you had to," he continued, taking advantage of her silence. "We didn't have any other choice. I understand that, Katara." He turned away from her, busying himself with the firewood he had dumped on the ground.

"But you're not okay with it either." Zuko didn't answer, didn't even look back at her, but the way that his whole body slumped under Sokka's borrowed parka was answer enough. Stepping forward, she laid a hand on his shoulder.

"All I want to know is _why_." Viciously, he swiped his hand at the pyramid of kindling he'd been building up only seconds before, as if the inanimate wood were somehow responsible for his grievances. Sticks went clattering over the rocky ground, some of them even flying so far that they sank into the powdery snow surrounding their campsite, leaving nothing but dark shadows to mark their presence.

"_Why_ did it have to be this way?" he continued, shaking free of her touch as he shot to his feet, pacing back and forth in an agitated line. "Why did she have to be so twisted, so cruel, so… so… _insane?_" The ground around his boots was smoldering, and when he came close to the snow it melted into rivulets beneath his feet. "Family is supposed to care for each other… right?"

The look on his face when he turned back to her, his golden eyes so lost, so confused, made Katara's heart wrench—he really was _asking_ the question that should never have to be asked, that had, since the day she was born, been as plain to her as the wind and snow. Whatever response she might have given died in her throat—there was nothing she could say.

"I keep wondering whether there was something more I could have done." Stopping his pacing at last, Zuko sank down onto a nearby rock; Katara moved to sit next to him—close, but not touching. "If I somehow could have gotten through to her while I was home. She even—Katara, while I was there she even acted like my _sister_ for a while. If I could have—" It seemed, however, that even he did not know what he wished he could have done.

The seconds ticked by, the only sound Zuko's ragged breathing. "I don't know," Katara confessed at last, quietly. "I've known Azula for all of six months; you've had an entire lifetime with her. You probably know how her mind works a lot better than I do. But Zuko—I do know that that kind of madness, or that kind of cruelty, doesn't spring up overnight. Whatever caused it, it was coming on for a long time, and I don't think there was anything you could have done to stop it. Not when you were in the Fire Nation for such a short time."

"Ozai."

"What?"

"That's what caused it. _Him_." Zuko's hands balled into fists. "He always cared more about power than he did about either of us. Azula might have been his favorite, but she was still nothing more than a tool to him. It didn't matter to him whether what she was doing was right; all he ever wanted was a weapon." Once again, there was no response for her to give—the only thing Katara could do for him was listen.

"Being stripped of everything important to me, living in exile for years… it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through, but in the end it was the best possible thing for me and my life," he continued. "I had Uncle, though. Azula… she has no one. Not even me."

A few minutes passed before Katara managed to find her voice. "After my mother died," she said at last, quietly, "my father took all the men of the tribe and left to fight in the war. Yon Rha killed my mother because he'd been looking for me, and my father decided that the only way to prevent more raids, to keep the Fire Nation from learning that there was still a waterbender in our tribe, was to take the battle to them." She took a deep breath. "And it worked. The only Fire Nation attack we've had since the Southern Raiders was you."

"And I wasn't looking for waterbenders," Zuko finished for her. In spite of his own hurt and confusion, he was watching her closely, clearly having deduced that she had a point to make even though he had no idea where she was going.

"My father's actions truly were what was best for the tribe—what was best for Sokka and me. If he hadn't gone to fight, I probably would have followed my mother a few years later." Unconsciously, her fingers came up to brush against her necklace. "But that didn't change how much it hurt for him to leave. It didn't stop me from being angry at him for years after the fact, for leaving us right when we needed him most." Katara shook her head, forcing back the tears that welled unbidden at the memory, at the thought of the last words she had said to her father and how unfeasible they had been in spite of how badly she had wanted them to be true. "Now I think I finally understand that there was nothing he could have done better—that there _was_ no good choice. We've been in a lot of those situations lately, but I think… I think that all we can do is endure and trust that we made the right decisions."

In response, Zuko shook his head, letting out a sigh as his eyes slipped closed. "Thank you, Katara," he said softly.

* * *

><p>How could the Water Tribes <em>stand<em> it?

Zuko had wondered that the first time he'd piloted his ship into polar waters, and he was wondering it again now. Even with Sokka's parka wrapped tightly around him—Sokka had insisted he take it, saying that Zuko would need it much more than he would, a gesture for which Zuko was now profoundly grateful—the frigid air still seemed to seep right into his bones. Breath of Fire was useful in countering the cold, of course, but even when he did warm himself back up, not five minutes passed before he was shivering again. As if that weren't bad enough, long-sustained use of firebending depleted his energy, which when combined with his inability to get a good night's sleep because of the cold, left him constantly groggy and irritable.

It didn't help, either, that his firebending had gotten steadily weaker the farther north they'd gone.

At least, he thought, it wasn't likely to get much colder. Zuko had been keeping a close watch on the night sky as they'd traveled north, even making the occasional correction to their course—according to Katara, the first time she'd been up here, they had simply blundered around until a group of tribesmen had found them. Zuko, on the other hand, had been traveling with a fleet, and even stowed away as he was he'd made a point of keeping close track of their position with the charts and coordinates that Uncle managed to bring him—one never knew when such knowledge might come in handy. According to the stars, they were nearly at the pole.

"There it is!" Katara said at last, pointing. Looking over the top of the saddle past Appa's head, Zuko set eyes on a magnificent wall of ice. Of course, this was not the first time he'd seen the Northern Water Tribe's fortifications, but that had been at a distance from Zhao's invasion fleet, or glimpsed furtively from behind blocks of ice, and anyway he'd been too focused on capturing the Avatar to appreciate the view. Now, he took the time to marvel at the things that dedicated waterbending could accomplish—which allowed him to glimpse what was emerging from the base of the wall.

"Looks like we've got company."

"I see them." Even as she spoke, however, Katara's hands tightened on the reins. "Let me do the talking, okay? They're not going to trust you—at least, not right away—but they will take my word." Under her breath, she added, "I hope."

Zuko nodded, leaving it unsaid that he knew from personal experience how long and how bitter Water Tribe grudges could last, especially when harm to loved ones was involved—he hadn't heard the full story of the missing and then restored moon until much, much later, but it wasn't hard to glean that Zhao's invasion of the Spirit Oasis had been responsible for the death of the moon, and that Zuko's kidnapping of the Avatar that night had been to Zhao's advantage. Aang had been the one to tell him of the sacrifice of the Chief's daughter, on a night when Sokka had grown too upset at a recounting of that adventure and walked away from the campfire without a word. Knowing what he did, Zuko had no illusions that Chief Arnook would be happy to see him again—indeed, that his first impulse would not be to kill Zuko on sight.

On the other hand, he also knew something of the importance that the Water Tribes placed on trust. Chief Hakoda, he remembered, had only needed Sokka's word, and Sokka had only needed Aang's, that Zuko was to be trusted. Hopefully, with Katara on his side, he'd be able to make it through this as well.

Hopefully.

As Katara called out a greeting to the warriors on the ships, Zuko remained seated in the back of the saddle, staying as still as possible; he didn't want to draw undue attention to himself, or give them any excuse to attack before she had had a chance to explain. He braced himself as Appa descended amid the answering calls that rose up from below—by the sound of it, there were at least three ships present, one of them in front and the other two flanking Appa's sides.

"Is that you, Katara?" a man's voice called from below. "What brings you here, and with the Avatar's bison? Do you seek shelter with the Northern Water Tribe?"

"No." Though he could not see her face, Zuko could hear her deep breath and the hesitant, careful manner in which she spoke. "We have important information to share with the chief."

"'We'?" Whoever was questioning Katara, he didn't miss much. "There were other survivors?"

"Yes." Katara shifted her weight slightly—she was preparing to step in if things got out of hand. "Zuko and I."

As she spoke his name, Zuko stood. He made sure to move slowly, pushing himself to his feet with movements that were deliberate and measured, first holding his hands palm outward in a gesture of surrender before lowering them carefully downward into the rest pose. There were _four_ boats surrounding them, and the Water Tribe warriors in them were bristling; those who held weapons clenched them tighter, raising spears or clubs or machetes to point directly at his face, while the waterbenders among them raised only their hands, streams of water dancing in the ocean below them of their own accord. Still, they did not actually attack, and that at least was something, so Zuko kept his hands still and his eyes down, taking the frigid air in steady, calming breaths while Katara spoke on his behalf. His hands itched to summon flames, or to reach for the swords he had left deliberately left packed away in the saddle, to defend himself from these people who would probably like nothing better than to see him dead, but he forced himself to maintain his steady, submissive pose—to willingly place his life in Katara's hands.

Finally, the leader of the group gave a curt nod. "We'll let the Chief decide."

It wasn't much, but at least they had not decided to take him prisoner, or to kill him on the spot. None of the men tried to address him directly as Appa began his swim toward the city, but they did cast him sidelong, hostile glances, and Zuko could not help but notice that as Appa moved, the boats were flanking him in a way that could not be coincidental.

"You can sit down now," Katara murmured. With a start Zuko realized that he was still standing with his hands held in the rest pose. Once more moving with deliberate slowness, he did as she suggested, folding his legs underneath him in a meditative posture. The cold was once again seeping right through his clothing and biting at his face, but he did not dare use firebending to warm himself—not when he was surrounded by warriors who would be all too happy to skewer him for the slightest wrong move.

He swallowed the impulse to ask Katara, like a frightened child, what would happen next—they had already discussed this, and Zuko knew roughly what to expect. Besides, Katara was still at Appa's head, and it would be a bad idea to draw attention to himself by calling or getting up to join her. Instead, he watched the city.

The Fire Nation had taught its children that all of the other peoples were lower beings, barely worthy to be called human, savages unfit to govern or decide what was best for themselves without the benevolent hand of the Fire Lord to guide them. Once, Zuko had also parroted these claims unthinkingly, and his first glimpses of the Southern Water Tribe had only served to justify such a perspective in his mind. What sort of people, he had wondered, chose to live on and in the skins and furs of dead animals, to build dwellings brick by painstaking brick of ice when the Fire Nation could bring them all of the commodities of true civilization? Only after he had seen the Northern Water Tribe's crystal palaces, their sophisticated canal system and fountains of ice, did Zuko begin to realize that their less fortunate sister tribe was only forced to live in such a state because of what _his_ people had done in taking away their waterbenders. It was a sobering realization.

"We're here." In response to Katara's call, Zuko climbed to his feet and jumped from Appa's saddle to the ice—right into the midst of a group of armed men. Even as the spears were leveled on him, however, Katara came pushing through them to stand at his side, giving them a look that, while not exactly hostile, was still firm and decisive. If anyone was going to ensure his good behavior, she was saying, it would be her. The men exchanged a few puzzled looks before shrugging and ranging out around them, and Zuko gave her a nod of thanks as they followed their escort into the palace.

The dais held several chairs, all of which were occupied by stern-looking men; Zuko assumed that the leader of the tribe was the one in the middle. His guess was confirmed when the man nodded at their escort, who spread out to their back and sides—cutting off all escape routes, he thought uneasily.

Katara did not seem to share his concern. "Chief Arnook," she greeted, clasping her hands in front of her and bending slightly at the waist. It seemed odd to Zuko that she remained standing—he'd had to greet Ozai on hands and knees, and he was a prince—but he knew that things worked differently in the Water Tribes, and if his bow was slightly lower than Katara's, it was only natural for him to show a high degree of respect to someone with whom an alliance had become essential, especially given that he'd already wronged the man once before.

"Katara," the Chief greeted warmly as she raised her head once more. "A member of our sister tribe will always be welcome here, even in such troubled times. And…" His eyes widened as his gaze drifted over to Zuko, who forced himself to stand straight and not look away from the expression of shock, and then anger, that crossed Arnook's face.

"Zuko came with me as an ally," Katara said quickly, and Zuko breathed a private sigh of relief that she had left off his title. "He also came to Avatar Aang, as a friend, and has more than made up for the wrongs he has done us. He can help the Northern Tribe as well."

"Impressive, that you are willing to vouch for him." Arnook spoke slowly, a fact which told Zuko he was choosing his words with great care. "I will, however, need compelling reason to trust the one who was indirectly responsible for my daughter's death."

There it was again: yet another one of his past crimes laid out before him, an act committed in selfishness that had culminated in dire consequences for someone else, someone innocent. Once, Katara had reassured him that there was no way to know what would have happened if Zuko hadn't interfered, that even if she and Aang had been there to defend the Moon Spirit, there was no guarantee that Zhao wouldn't have found another way—but Zuko also knew that that didn't matter. What had happened was the reality, and he intended to atone, as much as he could, for the part that he'd played in bringing it about.

"I can offer you compelling reason." Zuko, too, was mindful of every word he spoke: he could not afford to downplay the urgency of their situation, but the Chief was entitled to his grief and his distrust, and allowing the situation to escalate would not help matters at all. "When Zhao attacked, he needed a massive invasion fleet in order to offer a credible threat, and in that regard he succeeded. Even as he was laying siege, however, a single lost, injured, hypothermic teenager managed to sneak past the Northern Water Tribe's best defenses, find the Spirit Oasis without the aid of a map, battle a skilled waterbender to a standstill, capture the Avatar, and disappear into the tundra without anyone else the wiser. If I'd wanted to take out the Moon Spirit, I could have done so at any time—and eventually, someone else will try it again. I know that there's nothing I can do to make up for the death of your daughter," he continued, lowering his eyes. "But please. Let me do what I can to help you protect her in her new form."

After Zuko finished, they waited in silence. No one prompted Arnook for an answer; it was clear that he was thinking, weighing Zuko's words against his actions. Then, however, he let out a sigh.

"As Chief, I must first consider what is best for my people. I will allow you to stay here, under my protection, on the condition that you share everything you know." Zuko nodded; he had expected nothing less. "But," he continued as Zuko raised his head, "you would do well to remember that you are only here on the good graces of one of our own. If you give me reason to believe that you are a danger to my people, I will not hesitate to do whatever I must."

_You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends, right then and there. Permanently._

Zuko bowed his head. "I understand."

* * *

><p>They were housed separately.<p>

Chief Arnook had granted Katara the use of Master Pakku's old house for the duration of her stay—an honorable position, reserved for a master waterbender, and one to which she was entitled as Pakku's best student and (however briefly) his granddaughter. It was, however, far too large for one person, and a depressing place to be in alone. When she had ventured the suggestion that there was plenty of space for Zuko as well, however, Arnook had only frowned and explained politely, but with an air of finality, that in the Northern Tribe it simply was not appropriate for men and women neither married nor family to share sleeping quarters. Never mind that she and Zuko had been sleeping within arm's reach of each other for the past several months, and had never once done anything that could be considered "inappropriate" even by Northern standards. Katara, however, hadn't argued the point. Arnook might have been making every effort to show some courtesy to her at least, but all along she had suspected an ulterior motive: the tribe didn't trust the Fire Prince with one of their own.

At least the Chief had been open about the arrangements he'd made for them: Zuko had been granted a small dwelling in the warriors' quarter, a district reserved for young, unmarried men who were moving up in the tribal hierarchy. Neither of them had missed the unspoken implication: Zuko would be surrounded by plenty of skilled warriors to keep an eye on him in case he made a wrong move—and, if worse came to worst, the people in closest proximity of him did not have dependent wives or children.

That was where Katara was heading now.

The manner in which she was going grated on her: when she had ventured, at dinner, to openly ask Zuko where he would be staying, the women nearest her had turned away, pretending not to hear; the looks she had gotten from the men, meanwhile, had ranged from sly winks all the way down to lecherous leers. Her first time here, Katara had had neither time nor occasion to interact privately with any men other than Aang, her brother, or Master Pakku, but now she was quickly learning that in the Northern Tribe, men and women were not _friends_. If they were not family, there was only one reason for an unmarried woman to visit the house of an unmarried man.

So it was that Katara found herself sneaking around in the middle of the night like some kind of criminal, glancing furtively from side to side as if she were up to any number of things other than what she was actually doing. Even getting as far as she had had been a trial—women learning combative waterbending or not, the culture of the Northern Water Tribe wasn't going to change overnight, and from the second she had stepped out of her door it had taken an inordinate amount of time to convince any and every man who crossed her path that she was only going for a walk, and that she neither needed nor wanted an escort. Finally she had ducked into a deserted alleyway and waterbent herself a tunnel under the ice, completing her journey to the district in question in roughly half the time it would have taken her to go there openly.

Now, she stood above the ice once more. It had taken a few rounds of furtive trial and error, but eventually, she'd managed to come up on the far side of the house—the side facing the open ice fields. Taking one last cautious look around to make sure that she hadn't been spotted, Katara bent herself an opening and walked straight through the wall.

Zuko was there. He was sitting with his back to her on a layer of furs, sharpening one of his swords. At the sound of her entrance, however, he sprang to his feet, body going automatically into a firebending stance.

"It's just me," Katara said hastily—startling Zuko, she remembered, could be extraordinarily dangerous.

"Katara?" Immediately he relaxed, letting out a breath. "For a second I thought—no, never mind."

"Thought what?" Zuko shook his head. "That someone was going to sneak in and attack you?" He didn't respond, but his silence was answer enough. "You're under the Chief's protection. No one is going to do anything to you unless they're sure they have good reason." The rest hung unspoken between them: _I never hurt you, remember, even when I hated you and thought you were only joining us for a chance to get at Aang._ She frowned. "Has someone been making threats?"

"Not exactly." He sank back down onto the furs; Katara joined him. "Everyone here has just been making it clear that I'm not welcome."

To that, Katara could say nothing—she couldn't think of a single reassurance that wouldn't have been the height of hypocrisy. Nor could she blame the men of the tribe; they had good reason to hate and fear the Fire Nation, especially now, with the war lost and no opposition left to speak of. Zuko was just going to have to earn their trust, the same way he had earned hers: through hard work, atonement, and proving his sincerity.

"They won't hurt you," she repeated instead. "Not while you're under the Chief's protection—and mine."

"So what's the plan?" he asked, joining the swords back together into their seamless whole before sheathing them once more. "I'm going out with the warriors and Chief Arnook first thing in the morning to show them what I know. Do you have any ideas on how you're going to look for the Avatar?"

"To be honest? I don't know. A hundred years ago, they did it by letting all the eligible children choose from thousands of toys and seeing which one could pick out the four Avatar relics, but obviously we don't have those anymore." Katara bit her lip. "I'll talk to Yugoda tomorrow," she said at last, looking up. "Aside from Zhao's invasion, the Northern Water Tribe has been nearly untouched by the war. If anyone has records that can help us, I think they would."

"Let's hope so." Zuko looked at the door. "It's been a long day. We should both get some rest."

With a nod, Katara pushed herself to her feet. "Meet me in the healing huts as soon as you're done for the day. I'll be sure to tell Chief Arnook that I'm expecting you."

* * *

><p>By the time she made it to breakfast the next morning, the men were already leaving, taking Zuko with them.<p>

_He'll be fine_, she reminded herself as he caught her eye from across the room, before turning around to follow the Water Tribe men. _Zuko can take care of himself._ Besides, Katara had her own task to worry about.

Yugoda greeted her warmly, much as she had the first time Katara had set foot in the healing huts. Not wanting to interrupt, Katara sat down to join in the healing lesson along with the rest of the girls and women. In spite of the importance of her mission, she did not consider this a waste of time. Recent events had driven home the true value of having a thorough knowledge of healing.

"Welcome back," Yugoda said when the lesson had ended at last, and Katara stayed behind to talk. "I have missed having you in my class. You're one of the quickest learners I've ever taught, and I would like to hear how Kanna has been doing."

At her words, Katara felt a pang of guilt, for several different reasons. Though she did not regret having learned how to fight—her skills on the battlefield had saved her life and others' far too many times for her to wish she had stuck to healing instead—she realized now that she had put less value on learning how to heal, for no better reason than because it was what women were "supposed" to do in the Northern Tribe. When she thought about it, however, her healing abilities had also saved so many people she cared about—Aang, her father, Zuko, and Suki among them—and though there was nothing she could have done to keep them from getting hurt, maybe if she had taken her healing lessons more seriously, the close calls wouldn't have been as close. Now, having returned to the Northern Water Tribe, Katara was beginning to realize the flaw in both her thinking, and in theirs. People should not be confined to learning only half of their art. In order to truly master waterbending, it was necessary to learn _all_ of its aspects: life and death alike.

"Gran-Gran's been well, as far as I know," she answered, settling herself on the floor at Yugoda's invitation. "I'm afraid I haven't seen her since I left the South Pole, almost a year ago now. I do know she got married to Master Pakku while I was gone." Even as she said it, however, she could not help but look away. Ever since Katara had learned the news, happy though it was, she had not been able to shake the feeling that she should have been there—at home, with her people.

"I have heard," Yugoda said gently. "It is good to know that they found each other again, even if only at the end." Katara nodded.

"So tell me, Katara," she continued as she poured them both drinks—a hot, sweet type of tea that Katara had only ever had in the North. "I don't think you only wanted to see me for more healing lessons. So what brings you here?"

So they were finally getting down to business. Sighing, Katara set down her cup. "Yugoda, I'd like to take a look at all of the children—all of the waterbenders—who were born on the day of Sozin's Comet."

Immediately Yugoda was serious. "You seek the next Avatar."

"_Please_, Yugoda. If you know anything that could help—anything at all—we need to know it too."

"Unfortunately, that knowledge was lost at the start of the Hundred Year War." She sighed. "Traditionally, at the end of the Avatar cycle, the last Avatar's home nation would pass the Avatar relics on to the next nation in the cycle. With the genocide of the Air Nomads, however, those relics were lost."

"I see. So there's really nothing…?"

"I do not know of any alternative method of identifying the Avatar," Yugoda said gently. "That does not, however, mean that we should not try—and I do have one idea. A skilled healer can tell whether or not a child is a bender well before that child is of age to use the ability. I do not know of any technique to identify specific types of bending, but… if anyone can find a way, I believe that it is you." She pushed herself to her feet. "Are you ready to resume your lessons?"

"Yes, Master Yugoda." Katara rose with a bow. "I am."

* * *

><p>There had, in fact, been a handful of children born on the day of the Comet, about half of them benders. The rest of the day passed with Yugoda leading her from house to house, greeting the mothers and exchanging a few pleasantries before she made the request that they let Katara have a look at their children.<p>

The story they told was that it was practice for Katara's lessons, which was technically true—and since no one they visited seemed to see anything strange in their request, such lessons seemed to be a regular occurrence. They had agreed, before setting out, that it was best not to raise people's hopes or (in the case of the parents) their fears, and that the fewer people knew of the Avatar's identity, the less likely it was to get back to the Fire Nation. If they did manage to find the Avatar, they would consult with the parents and with Chief Arnook to determine what to do next.

Currently, however, the mothers they greeted were happy to work with her, and by the end of the day Katara could tell the difference between a bender and a nonbender with ease. She could not, however, make the distinction between individual benders—and she didn't know whether it was because the Avatar had not been born into this tribe, or because the different types of bending all felt the same.

Or maybe, a nagging voice whispered in the back of her head as they returned to the healing hut, she just wasn't good enough.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Zuko pushed through the door, breathing fire into his hands. The tip of his nose was red, fine particles of ice were embedded in the fur lining of his borrowed parka, and he looked to be in an exceedingly bad mood.

"How did it go?" she asked as he removed his gloves, summoning twin flames in the palms of his hands to heat his stiffened fingers.

"I don't think they believed me when I told them all the crazy things I did to sneak into the city. I'm lucky they didn't make me swim under the ice all over again to prove I wasn't making it up." He pulled his gloves back on with a scowl.

"You did _what?_" Katara might have been native to the climate, but even she shuddered at the idea of taking a swim in the ocean at this latitude—much less going under the ice and taking the risk of never coming back up again.

"Don't worry, Uncle already gave me that lecture." As he spoke, Zuko looked at the floor, and suddenly all Katara could think of was him kneeling beneath an old tree, shoulders shaking with grief.

Fortunately, Yugoda came to the rescue. "Sit down," she said politely, indicating a fur mat on the floor. "You must be freezing." In short order a mug of hot tea was in his hands.

"How about you?" he asked in between sips. It took a few seconds for Katara to realize that he was talking about her search for the Avatar.

"We don't know anything," she confessed. "There are no relics left from before the war, and I've learned to tell whether or not a child is a bender, but I don't even know whether it's possible to tell the difference between waterbending and other abilities—" Her explanation ground to a halt as a sudden idea came to mind. "Zuko, come here!"

"What are you _doing?_" He jerked backward as she reached toward him, hands coated with water.

She pulled back, though without releasing control of the water. "I want to see whether your firebending feels any different than the waterbenders I looked at today. That's all I want to do, I promise." Tentatively, she reached forward again, but didn't get close enough to touch.

When he gave a brief nod that she took to be consent, Katara reached forward to rest her hands against his temples. "Try to relax." He nodded again, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. Using the technique Yugoda had taught her earlier that day, she worked her consciousness through Zuko's chi paths, searching out his spiritual energy. It was there, visible to her senses as it had been for some of the children she'd checked earlier, but Katara could find no difference between his firebending abilities and the abilities of the Water Tribe children—and if water's natural opposite felt exactly alike, that didn't preface much hope for the rest of the elements.

Finally, she was forced to give up, pulling away with a growl of frustration. "No luck?" Zuko guessed, opening his eyes.

"Nothing. You feel exactly the same as anyone else—I can tell you're a bender, but that's about it." She threw the water at a bare spot on the wall, where it froze.

Before she could vent further, however, another person pushed her way into the healing hut. Looking more closely, Katara recognized her as one of the mothers she'd met earlier in the day—and she was holding two infants in her arms. At the sight of Zuko sitting on the floor, she started and took an instinctive step backward. Though Yugoda's reassuring gesture convinced her not to go running, her eyes wandered over to the firebender every few seconds, only to snap away as if she thought that Zuko would jump up and eat her children if he caught her looking.

"I'm sorry to bother you like this, Yugoda," she said as the healer got up; Katara started to push herself to her feet as well, but remained where she was at a gesture from her teacher. "Senna's sister just stopped by to tell me that one of her children is ill, and none of my neighbors can take her on such short notice—"

"That's quite all right, Ummi." Yugoda lifted the younger of the two infants into her own arms. "I'm sure we can make do until we find someone else who can take her. Does Senna need me to take a look at her boy? Or is it one of her daughters?"

"The boy. It looks like it's only a cough, but Senna says she'll bring him in if it doesn't clear up on its own in a few days."

"Tell her sister to see that she does." The woman nodded as she bowed her way out of the hut, sparing one last suspicious look for Zuko as she went.

"What's wrong with the baby?" Katara asked as soon as she had left, getting to her feet as Yugoda laid the warmly-wrapped infant on top of one of the softer furs. This child was one of the ones she'd confirmed as a bender, and the girl had been healthy (if unusually quiet) earlier in the day—though Katara felt a bit of unease over the apparent lack of affection on the part of her mother. "She seemed fine earlier—"

"Nothing is wrong with her." Yugoda had grown quite serious, which was a startling change from her usual welcoming cheer. "It is no longer Ummi's responsibility to care for her. This is not her child."

"Then whose is she?" Zuko seemed to be getting drawn into the conversation in spite of himself; though he did not rise from his position, he looked over at the girl with genuine curiosity.

With a sigh, Yugoda settled to the floor once again, close to the baby even though all of her immediate needs seemed to have been met. "Her mother… was not married. She was not even engaged. I can only imagine that she was overcome by shame at her condition, for she went to such lengths to hide it that she ruined her health. The foolish girl did not even come to me until she was well into labor, at which point there was nothing I could do. I managed to deliver the child and to ensure her health, but it was too late for the mother—she died within the hour.

"Her mother's family will have nothing to do with this girl," Yugoda continued. "Aside from the shame surrounding her conception, that she gained life by taking her mother's is considered an ill omen—as is the fact that she was born on the day of the Fire Nation's ascension. So far, no man has come forward to claim responsibility for fathering her, and at this point I don't think anyone will. Other women who have young children have been taking it in turn to nurse her, but none of them have any great love for a child who takes time and attention away from their own, and who was born on the day of her mother's death."

"What's her name?"

Everyone turned to look at Zuko, who had stood and was making his way over. Katara, left speechless by the horrible story, still had a hand over her mouth; Yugoda, after a few seconds had passed, was the one to answer his question. "She has none."

"Children in the Water Tribes can only be named by their parents," Katara explained at his look of stunned disbelief. "If there aren't any families who will accept her as their own…"

Her sentence trailed off as Zuko knelt down next to the baby. As he leaned forward to get a look at her, the child let out a squeal of delight, reaching up toward him in an unmistakable demand.

With a smile, Zuko reached down to grant her wish, but then hesitated, as if afraid he might break her by accident. Taking pity on him, Yugoda showed him what to do, repositioning his hands so as to best support her. Even as he lifted the infant into his arms, however, she continued to reach for him, and after a second's hesitation he ducked his head, allowing her to pat her small hand against his face. When her fingers made contact with the rough scar tissue, she let out a brief squeak before burbling with delight, and he smiled at her honest affection.

After a few seconds of this, however, Zuko seemed to realize he still had an audience, for he looked up self-consciously (though, Katara noted, he did not pull out of the baby's reach). He must have noticed the barely-contained hope on Katara's face and deduced what she was thinking, for he immediately schooled his own face into an expression of skepticism. "Maybe she's just friendly."

"Or maybe she finds you familiar!" It was no longer possible for Katara to hide her expression of delight; she was growing surer by the second. "Zuko, this is the only lead we have. We need to at least consider the possibility."

"Why didn't she react to _you_, then?" Zuko was trying to look stern—an effort which was somewhat ruined by the baby, who was still patting one hand over his face while the other tugged insistently at a lock of his hair.

Katara bit her lip. As much hope as this potential discovery gave her, it hurt to think that the person who might have once been Aang had responded to Zuko, his onetime worst enemy, but not to her. "Infants have a hard time focusing," she said at last. "To her, I probably look exactly the same as everyone else here. Your face, though…"

There was no need for her to finish. Zuko said nothing, only looked back down at the baby. During their short time here, he had not had much occasion to interact with children, but those few they had encountered had all shied away at the sight of his face. Even without knowing who he was, his angular features and the prominent burn scar that stuck one of his eyes in a permanent glare had told them he was someone to fear. This was the first time Katara had seen a child reach out to him willingly, which only strengthened her conviction.

"This child has never been overly friendly," Yugoda put in. "As a matter of fact, she is quite shy. She has never taken to anyone like this—not to any of the women who care for her, not to me, and certainly not to a stranger." She put a funny sort of emphasis on the word "women," and Katara realized she was nonplussed at the sight of a man showing such care for a child so young and not his own.

"There's no way to tell for sure," Zuko reminded her. "At least, not until she's old enough to bend."

"I know." Hope or not, Katara did understand that they had to be realistic. "I'll just have to keep looking for other ways."

* * *

><p>"Do you remember what I said to you back in the Crystal Catacombs?"<p>

"That you thought I'd changed?"

"No. I meant before that."

"That I was a horrible person?"

"After that." Katara felt a hot blush rising to her cheeks. "I meant about your scar."

"Oh." As if of its own accord, his left hand reached up to touch his face.

"I still don't know whether it's even possible," she was quick to add. "But we are at the North Pole. There are a lot of experienced healers around, and I've got access to Spirit Water. It can't hurt to at least ask."

"This scar does make me stand out. I guess it would make life easier for both of us if we got rid of it."

A few minutes later found them standing in front of Yugoda, who looked pensive. "I'm afraid that Spirit Water alone is not sufficient to remove a scar. But perhaps there is another way…" When she reached a water-coated hand toward Zuko's face, however, his first response was to jerk backward.

"I'm not going to hurt you, child." She did, however, take a slight step back from him as she spoke. "Nor will I do anything without your permission. I only want to ascertain the severity of the original injury." After a few seconds, Zuko gave a brief, jerky nod of consent.

This time, he stayed still while Yugoda held the water to his face. Katara couldn't help but notice, however, how stiffly he was holding himself, or the way his hands clenched into fists at his sides: it was taking a real, physical effort for him not to pull away. Thankfully, the contact lasted for only a few seconds before Yugoda withdrew her hand with a sigh.

"There is a way, but I would not recommend trying it. Sometimes, by cutting away the damaged tissue and continuously healing the area with Spirit Water, a scar can be lessened or even removed entirely. Your scarring, however, goes very deep. If we were to try it, there is a good chance that you would lose your eye."

Zuko only nodded. Outwardly, at least, he showed no sign of disappointment or regret—nothing more than a quiet acceptance of the circumstances.

"But there is one thing that we _can_ help you with." Looking half interested and half cautious, Zuko lowered his hand from where it had once again been brushing up against his scar. "You can't see very well out of that eye, can you?"

"No," he confessed. "My vision is a lot blurrier than it was before… before I got burned."

Yugoda nodded; he had not said anything that she hadn't expected. "It would be a miracle if such a burn hadn't done some damage to your vision. With Spirit Water, however, it is possible that some—perhaps even all—of that damage could be healed. Would you like to give it a try?"

For a few more seconds, Zuko seemed to consider. Then, however, he gave a nod. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I would."

"Then I will begin teaching Katara everything she needs to know."

"Wait a minute, you want _me_ to do it?" Katara squeaked.

"You did want to learn more about healing, didn't you?" Was it just her, or did Yugoda actually look _sly?_ "Well, this is a perfect opportunity."

Later, however, while they were in the midst of a private lesson and Zuko was out with the men, Yugoda elaborated. "Water healing is not solely dependent on skill. Trust is also important, and it is evident that he is not comfortable with me touching him—hardly uncommon, for an injury associated with a traumatic experience. You, however… well, I've dealt with enough warriors to know true companions when I see them. You two have saved each other's lives, I can tell."

"At least two times for each of us, now," Katara confessed. "He even took a bolt of lightning to save me." That thought led to another, drawing her attention once more from the mannequin. "Do you think that's why I was able to heal him? Because we trusted each other?"

"I would not be at all surprised."

Come to think of it, she had once brought Aang back from the dead, and she hadn't even known what she was doing. At the time, she'd assumed that the Spirit Water had done the work for her, but…

"I think I'm beginning to see what you mean." Bending once more to her task, Katara focused harder on the lesson than she ever had before.

At least she was making progress in _something_—which was more than she could say about their search for the Avatar.

Lately, she had had plenty of opportunity. The child had been spending increasingly more time in the healing huts—she had taken to Zuko so strongly that he had extended the offer to care for her whenever she didn't need feeding and whenever he wasn't out with the men. Though most of the women who nursed her had looked askance at him for his request and some had even exchanged whispers concerning his true intentions, not one of them had turned down the opportunity to be rid of the child who had no family and whom none of them wanted—behavior that made Katara's blood boil in spite of its convenience to them.

"We should not attempt to force a child on someone who doesn't care for her," Yugoda reminded her gently, when Katara had been left panting and teary-eyed after the tirade that had followed when one particularly reluctant nursemaid had dumped the girl in Yugoda's arms and left without a word. "Though I have asked those who can to nurse her out of necessity, forcing them to raise a child they do not want can only end badly—for them, yes, but more importantly for her."

"Yeah, no kidding," Zuko muttered under his breath, bouncing the girl gently in his arms even as she reached for his face. "She's better off without them, Katara," he continued, though less harshly, when she opened her mouth to protest further. "_Trust_ me."

"I suppose so." As the fury ebbed away, however, it left behind a feeling of hollow emptiness, which she tried to cover by testing the girl's bending once again. This time, she held one hand to the baby's forehead, the other to Zuko's, wondering whether checking them at the same time would produce any discernable difference.

It didn't. "Nothing," she said as she pulled away. Zuko gave her a sharp look—he'd probably noticed that she'd let her hand linger against his head for a few seconds longer than she had the girl's—but he didn't say anything, and she didn't offer an explanation. They both already knew how such a discussion would end.

The truth was, Katara was worried.

Even with all of the time she had been spending in the library, she could not help but notice that as winter approached and the days shrank down to only a few hours of anemic sunlight, Zuko had been leaving the healing huts at increasingly earlier times—he tried not to make a big deal out of it, but his fatigue was obvious even to the untrained eye and even more so to a healer. The one time Katara had talked him into staying a little later, he had ended up falling asleep on the floor with the baby in his lap. Often he was not even able to make it until dinner, but dragged himself back to the warriors' quarter having consumed nothing more substantial than a cup of tea, leaving Katara to try to calm the fussing child until the next woman came to take her.

Then came the day when he didn't show up at breakfast, either.

Every day, the trained waterbenders of the tribe had been working to fortify the weaknesses in their defenses, and Zuko, who had a knack for finding even the ones he hadn't already exploited, had accompanied them every time. This time, however, Katara hadn't seen him at all—and even more worrying, neither had any of the men.

"No idea," their leader said gruffly when Katara asked. "It's not our job to babysit him."

Without waiting to hear more, Katara ran to the warriors' quarter. This time, she didn't bother to sneak—all of the men were out, there was no one around to see her—but instead went straight to his front door and pushed her way through.

"Zuko?" she called as she entered the hut. "_Zuko!_"

The only answer she received was silence. Now truly beginning to panic, Katara made her way to the back of the house where he slept.

He was there, wrapped in layers of furs, eyes closed, though Katara noted with relief that he was still breathing. Slightly less panicked (if no less worried), she knelt beside him and rested a hand against his forehead.

No fever—if anything his skin was slightly cooler than normal. Hypothermia? No, he hadn't lost nearly enough body heat for that. Before she could do anything more, however, Zuko stirred, brushing her hand away irritably as his eyes fluttered open.

"Stop that, Katara," he mumbled, though his arm flopped back down again as soon as she withdrew her hand. "I'm fine."

"Somehow I have a hard time believing that." Rocking back on her heels, she crossed her arms as she looked at him sternly. "If you're so fine, why have you been lying in bed all day instead of going out with the men?"

"Wouldn't be much point." In spite of his claims that nothing was wrong, Zuko turned away from her as he spoke. "I've lost my bending."

"You've lost— Zuko, why didn't you say something earlier?"

"It didn't disappear entirely until today. It was just getting… weaker." A shiver went through his body. "I think it's because the sun is gone."

Indeed, it had only been a week ago that the sun had dipped below the horizon for good, not to return until spring arrived once more. Though Katara thought that his idea was probably right—she remembered what the death of the Moon Spirit had done to her waterbending, and the reason they'd chosen to invade the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun—she nonetheless convinced Zuko to consult with Yugoda. Eight minutes without his firebending might not have hurt him, but the months-long polar winter was something else entirely, and his constant fatigue was a new and worrying symptom. It would be a good idea, she thought, to check whether long-term deprivation of sunlight would have a detrimental effect on his health—in which case Zuko at least would have to take Appa and head south for the winter, whether they'd confirmed the identity of the Avatar or not.

Fortunately, Yugoda was able to confirm Zuko's suspicions. "It is the lack of sunlight," she said as she pulled the water away from his body. "Winters here are hard on anyone not native to the climate, but to a firebender in particular… It should not, however, result in any long-term harm. Your bending abilities will return with the spring." Zuko let out a sigh of relief.

In spite of the reassurance that it would do him no permanent harm, it was evident that the lack of sunlight was hard on Zuko's body. He now slept for upwards of fifteen hours a day, and when he did wake he was groggy and out of sorts, unable to do even the simplest of tasks without suffering from overwhelming exhaustion. Katara, not wanting to leave the baby girl with families who didn't want her any longer than was strictly necessary, had all but taken over his duty of watching her, and after pleading his case with the Chief, had gotten Arnook to agree that the information Zuko had already shared was sufficient to continue their fortifications.

Katara, meanwhile, was having no luck in either confirming or refuting the identity of the Avatar. In spite of her best efforts, her ability to detect bending remained stubbornly binary; even attempting the technique on Zuko again, in the hopes that his dormant firebending would produce a noticeable difference, failed to give a noteworthy result. The baby (who, thankfully, had now been fully weaned) remained primarily in her care whenever Zuko wasn't awake, and Katara continued to check her abilities against those of other waterbenders, against nonbenders, and against Zuko, but came up against a wall no matter what she tried.

There must be another way. They were now halfway through the winter, and had been at the North Pole for upwards of five months, but were still barely closer to finding the Avatar than they had been when they'd first arrived. It was this thought that drove Katara to the Spirit Oasis once more. She was no Avatar, and could not meditate her way to the Spirit World to look for answers the way Aang had; nevertheless, the source of waterbending was there, and she entertained some hope that even if using Spirit Water didn't help her, the place itself might lead her toward a solution.

Upon stepping into the warm, relatively moist air of the oasis with the baby in tow, however, Katara quickly discovered that she was not alone: a figure in red lay sprawled out on the grass beside the koi pond.

At first, she feared that Zuko had collapsed, or that he had fallen dangerously ill—as a non-native to the climate and without his firebending to keep himself warm, Yugoda had emphasized that it was important for him to avoid getting a chill, as his body would find it much harder to fight off illness in his current fatigued state. As Katara approached closely enough to get a good look, however, her concern was eased: his relaxed position and the rolled-up parka beneath his head indicated that he was only sleeping.

After setting the baby down nearby so she could remove her own parka, Katara knelt beside him, reaching out to gently touch his shoulder. "Hey."

He came awake slowly, his eyelids fluttering as he fought his way to consciousness as he had every day since the onset of winter. Katara waited patiently, as she had also done every day—she was no longer trying to hide her regular visits to the warriors' quarter; if not brought food on a regular basis, Zuko probably would have neglected to eat, and right now Katara was the only one who cared enough to do it. Let the Northern Water Tribe think whatever they wanted.

"Katara?" He rolled slightly from his side, turning his head to blink groggily up at her. "Where's Lien?"

"Who?"

At first, she thought that Zuko must have been working his way out of a dream; it wasn't a name she recognized. When he came fully awake, however, a look of alarm spreading over his face, Katara knew that there was something else going on.

He sat up, burying his face in his hands. "The baby. Where is she?"

"Right here." She moved slightly to the side so Zuko could see the child who was still wrapped in a sleeping bundle on the grass behind her, though the frown did not leave her face. "But Zuko, you didn't—"

"I've only been using it in private, when it was just the two of us." With a sigh he lowered his hands, meeting her eyes at last. "She needed a name, Katara. We can't keep calling her 'girl' her whole life."

"That's true." Allowing her legs to fold the rest of the way, Katara sat down beside him. "Yugoda still hasn't found a family willing to take her in, and at this rate it doesn't look like it's going to happen. But Zuko… you do know what you've done, right? By Water Tribe law… are you sure this is a responsibility you want to take on?"

"It doesn't matter. No one else is going to." He shook his head. "Besides, if she really is the—if she is what you think, she's eventually going to need a firebending teacher."

"And if she isn't?" As sure as she was, they had no real proof, and Katara had to allow for the possibility that she'd been wrong.

"Then she's still going to need parents."

Katara's first impulse was to remind him that he was only seventeen, but she bit down on her words. This was something he'd already thought about extensively, she could tell. Besides, there wasn't a single member of their group who hadn't shouldered burdens that were far beyond their age, whether it was fighting a world-ending battle at twelve or leading an invasion at fifteen. Before she could continue second-guessing herself or him, Zuko's voice shook her out of her reverie. "Have you had any luck?"

"None whatsoever. I keep coming up against a wall no matter what I try." Her eyes drifted over to the koi pond. "I was bringing her here so I could give it a try with Spirit Water."

"It couldn't hurt." At Zuko's nod, she streamed a small amount of water over from the koi pond, holding one hand to his head and the other to the girl's as she had already done so many times before. Much to her frustration, however, their chi still felt exactly the same as it had when she'd worked with ordinary water.

"Nothing." As she pulled away, Katara let out a sigh of frustration. "There _has_ to be another way."

"What if there isn't? What if we have to wait until she gets old enough to start bending?"

To that, Katara had no answer. Instead, she changed the subject. "If you still want me to work on your eye, now would be as good a time as any." Only recently had she completed the relevant lessons with Yugoda—even for a skilled healer, the eye was a delicate, complicated organ, and attempting to do this sort of work without the proper training could cause more harm than good.

This time, at least, Zuko let the evasion slide, probably because there wasn't much point in arguing—if she was right, she'd find a way, and if she was wrong, they'd only know with time. Instead, he agreed to her proposal, and Katara instructed him to lie down before bending the majority of the Spirit Water back into the pond, retaining only a small handful for her healing.

"I'm sorry if I got your hopes up earlier," she said as she held her hand to his face

"Hm?" A slight shiver went through Zuko's body as she worked the water beneath the eyelid, but he did not try to pull away. "For what?"

"For _what?_ Zuko, I… I told you that I might be able to heal your scar. But it turns out I can't."

A few seconds passed before he spoke again. "To be honest, I'm actually kind of relieved."

Katara, who had been about to start healing, stopped. "What do you mean?" Her voice came out in a near-whisper.

"I know that it would be better to get rid of it. If it were possible, I think that I'd have to." Zuko took a deep breath, slowly letting it out once more. "But… I don't want to pretend that it didn't happen."

"But you still want me to do this?"

"Yes."

"Okay. This will probably feel… a little strange." Katara did not attempt to converse further, as she needed to focus. Spirit Water was potent; at times it almost seemed to have a mind of its own, and she actively had to push it where she knew it needed to go rather than acting as a gentle guide as she did with ordinary water.

Zuko flinched as she infused the water with her healing powers and it began to glow. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Keep going."

The scarring on his face should have prepared her, but only when she had taken a look with the water did Katara realize the true extent of the damage. Zuko was extraordinarily lucky that he still had the eye at all—that he could see out of it was nothing short of a miracle, blurring or not. Even with Spirit Water, this was going to take more than one session, and the fact that it was an old injury didn't help matters.

Katara continued to work on his eye for about half an hour. When she had done as much as she could, she pulled away—her hands were dry, the water having been fully absorbed in the process of healing—and opened her mouth to say that she was done, only to find that Zuko had fallen back to sleep while she worked.

For a moment, she considered getting up and leaving—she'd had the thought of searching through the library on healing techniques that used Spirit Water, and Zuko certainly wasn't going to notice that she was gone—but rethought that plan when she considered how the tribe's warriors would react if they found him here, alone, in such close proximity to the Moon Spirit one of his countrymen had slain. She didn't want to wake him up if she could help it, and moving him unconscious would be awkward at best. The baby—Lien, she supposed she'd have to start calling her now—was also sleeping peacefully, and the next healing lesson wouldn't be starting for another two hours. There was absolutely nowhere that Katara needed to be.

The thought should have been relaxing, but instead she only felt lost. As she stretched out on the grass beside Zuko, pillowing her head on her arms, Katara turned her gaze upward, to where an aurora danced across the sky. On the run with Aang, she'd never realized how much she'd missed the celestial lights—but the stars that lingered behind them were completely different from the ones she knew, and only served to remind her of how far she was from home.

* * *

><p>They talked between themselves, and agreed that it would be best not to share what Zuko had done with the tribe as a whole, at least not until they had had a chance to consult with Chief Arnook—which Katara didn't want to do until she was sure one way or the other about Lien's identity as the Avatar. Zuko let out a sigh, but agreed.<p>

They did, however, tell Yugoda. She at least was welcoming of the decision, and spent an extensive amount of time coaching Zuko whenever he was sufficiently lucid. Katara, meanwhile, spent her time with research, whether in the form of searching through ancient scrolls or trying to develop new techniques. Her search, however, remained fruitless. While the library contained plenty of scrolls on the Avatar, most of these were histories, detailing the lives and accomplishments of those Avatars who had originated in the Northern Water Tribe. Furthermore, no matter how far back she looked, the method of identification was always the same: the use of the four Avatar Relics. They had always been there, at least throughout written history, ritually passed from one nation to the next. There had been wars in the past, yes, massive ones, but never had there been a time when a nation simply didn't exist to pass them on.

When Chief Arnook requested their presence near the end of winter, Katara still had not found anything of use. Nevertheless, she thought it best to meet with him regardless—what little they had found would be of interest to the tribe, and perhaps Arnook would even be able to help.

"I'm afraid that the information in the library is all that we know." Arnook frowned. "Do you think you have found the Avatar?"

"I have… suspicions. The girl born without a father on the day of Sozin's Comet." Katara was careful not to use Lien's name. While she thought it best to share her hunch as to the baby's identity, until she knew for sure, their original agreement still held. "I don't want to say anything to the tribe yet, though. I think it would be a bad idea to get people's hopes up."

"I think that you're right. But… you say you've tried everything?"

"Everything I can think of. I'm going to keep doing whatever I can, but… we might have to wait until she starts bending."

"I trust you to do everything in your power to find the truth." He turned to Zuko. "What do you have to report?"

Though Arnook's cold clipped tone could not have escaped him, Zuko showed no outward reaction. "Before winter came your men and I found several breaches in the city's defenses. The ice might not stand up to strong firebending, so I would recommend increasing your guards in your weakest areas, and preparing for an aerial assault. The Spirit Oasis, however, is still in danger." He took a deep breath. "Since the start of winter, I've managed to sneak in seven times, without firebending, with no one the wiser."

Arnook frowned. "Tell me everything you know."

* * *

><p>From that day on, Katara spent much less time on research.<p>

Whatever animosity the Northern Water Tribe still harbored for Zuko, they did not let his information go to waste. From the day of their counsel onward, every skilled waterbender in the tribe was put to work both fortifying the city's defenses and concealing the Spirit Oasis against unwanted intrusion.

Nobody had asked Katara to help with the work. Quite aside from the fact that she had her own job to do, she was not a member of this tribe and therefore not strictly subject to the Chief's authority. What's more, she was a girl, and in spite of the fact that she had learned combative waterbending against Northern Water Tribe tradition, the standing cultural norms meant that she would not be expected to help out with work that was traditionally reserved for men.

Nevertheless, she threw in her lot with the men anyway. After much thought and debate with Arnook, with Zuko, and with herself, Katara decided that the protection of the Moon Spirit, and of the city and its people, took priority over finding the Avatar, who was still a baby and could do nothing to help them. Even if she did manage to find the truth of Lien's identity, it would be worth nothing if they couldn't protect her. Besides, her search for answers had been getting nowhere, and Katara needed to spend at least some of her time in an effort that she knew would be useful. It didn't hurt, either, that the constant high-level waterbending was a good way to work off her frustration.

At first the other waterbenders had no idea how to handle her presence. Though the boys she'd trained with in Pakku's class always treated her with respect, the same could not be said of the older men, those who'd mastered waterbending well before her challenge of Pakku and were still set in their ways. During her first week of work, Katara couldn't go a single hour without someone explaining to her how to do a basic technique, or doing something for her without asking because the work was "too involved" for her to handle, or simply talking over her whenever she ventured a suggestion. As much as she would have liked to give them a piece of her mind, she forced herself to control her temper. Right now, the safety of the tribe was more important, and challenging the mindset of every single man she encountered would have used up time and energy that they didn't have to spare.

Still, it grated on her to constantly bite back the retorts she would have very much liked to give, so when Sangok approached her during their lunch break at the end of her first week, Katara was at the end of her rope.

"Hey, Katara?"

"Yes?" She set her bowl to the side with an exasperated sigh. "What am I doing wrong _this_ time?" After a few days, she'd learned to stop being surprised at the offers to take over her share of the work since she shouldn't be straining herself so much, never mind that her share was still smaller than what the men did every day.

He took a step backward, holding his hands up in a defensive position. "I was going to ask if you'd like to spar with us after work. We haven't had any real lessons since Pakku left," he continued hastily, "and… well… you were his best student. If we're going to defend our tribe from the Fire Nation, we need some practice."

For a minute, Katara considered. Though she'd occasionally taken the time to practice on her own, sparring had not been a part of her daily routine during her time in the North Pole—as a matter of fact, she hadn't had a real fight, friendly or otherwise, since the battle with Azula nearly half a year ago. Maybe a good match or two was exactly what she needed to relieve the stress that working with the men was only exacerbating.

Slowly, a grin spread over her face. "You're on."

So it was that after work, Katara made a habit of staying behind to spar with her former classmates. Sometimes a few of the older men would hang back to watch as well, shaking their heads in disapproval or disbelief. Once, she overheard one of them telling Sangok not to get her hopes up.

"If the girl is so determined to cling to her fantasies, there's not much anyone can do—but you should not be encouraging her. If you and the other boys are holding back enough to give her the illusion that she's on the same level as the men, what do you think will happen when she gets into a real fight? Possibly with a Fire Nation soldier?"

"I'd be a lot more worried about the soldier, to be honest." Katara, who'd finally run out of patience and had started marching over to give him a piece of her mind, stopped in her tracks. "None of us have been holding back at all. As a matter of fact, I think that _she's_ been trying not to hurt _us_. You can try sparring with her yourself if you don't believe me."

"Thanks," she said in an undertone the next day, when she and Sangok were fortifying the same section of wall.

"Anyone who's ever fought with you knows how good you are," Sangok whispered back. "Even Master Pakku said you're the best student he'd ever trained, and Master Pakku _never_ gave out praise. He'd have defended you if he were here. I think that since he's not, he'd want us to do it in his stead."

Of course Katara had not forgotten about the Avatar in all of this, but she didn't know what else to do that she had not already tried, and her research was going nowhere. So she threw herself into construction and sparring, hoping that if she took a break from the frustrating, thankless task, something new might come to her.

Zuko, when he was able to drag himself out of bed, occasionally came by to look at their work—and when he did, he sometimes managed to find a few holes that they hadn't noticed. For the most part, however, the exhaustion of winter was still wearing on him, and he kept mostly to his own dwelling or to Yugoda's hut.

Katara continued to check up on him; before the beginning of her shift and after her final sparring match she would bring him food, gently prodding him awake and making sure that he ate. When Zuko finally did manage to open his eyes, usually after a few minutes of gentle shaking, he would push her hand away with a look of irritation—but he did take the food she offered, and he never sent her away.

So it was that she was headed there now, a seaweed-wrapped bundle in her hands. When she reached the front door, however, she was startled to see someone already standing outside.

Zuko's eyes were closed, his hood thrown back, his face turned toward the south—where a few colorless rays of light were beginning to peek above the horizon. He was taking the frigid air in deep, slow breaths, and instead of the usual mist, a small puff of flame came out of his mouth on every exhale.

Spring had come at last.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** According to my handy multicultural name dictionary, Lien is a Chinese name meaning "lotus." I thought that it was fitting.

Watching the series, I've noticed that Zuko _really_ doesn't like people touching his scar. As far as I remember, aside from Katara's one offer to heal him the only person allowed to touch him there was Iroh.

Oh, the joys of having to deal with patronizing men. Katara might have made some huge changes in the Northern Water Tribe, but it hasn't even been a year. A whole culture isn't going to rework itself overnight, and I wanted to explore a bit how a lot of things are still only equal in theory. I think I had the most fun with Sangok.

As for Katara and Aang sleeping in the same room the first time they were here? I think I have a bit of wiggle room, in that 1) Aang had yet to hit puberty, 2) Sokka was also present to keep an eye on them, 3) no one's going to say no to the Avatar, and 4) as mentioned above, Arnook has his own reasons for wanting to keep Zuko and Katara apart. Anyway, that's my reasoning in case anyone was wondering.


End file.
